


You Are Not Alone in This

by elrhiarhodan



Series: Recompense [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Barry Allen is an adorable cupcake with issues, Bite Kink, Building a Life on Earth-1, Crushes, Edging, Father-Daughter Relationship, Harrison Wells in Leather, Harrison Wells in Leather Pants, Harrison Wells is a badass, Harrison Wells is somewhat insecure, Harrison Wells on a Motorcycle, Leather Kink, M/M, Older Man/Younger Man, Oral Sex, Secret Relationships, Service Kink, Shower Sex, Slash, Smut, Too Much Big Belly Burger, barrison, boot kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-23 10:44:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6114061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine months after the defeat of Zoom, Harry and Jesse are settled on Earth-1. Jesse's nascent speedster powers are beginning to manifest and Harry's (mostly) content to rebuild S.T.A.R. Labs and spend stolen hours with his lover, Barry Allen, at least when Barry doesn't shut him out for reasons that he can't or won't explain.</p><p>This story is complete as published.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Theatregirl7299](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theatregirl7299/gifts).



> This started out from a conversation with Theatregirl7299, who was wondering if Jesse was being set up as a love interest for Barry. I replied that that would be rather revolting, since Barry's already sleeping with her dad (and had slept with her dad's doppelganger). Theatregirl challenged me to write that. Since my default setting is angst and smut, not crack, and I'm mostly incapable of writing anything short, this became an epic.
> 
> This makes assumptions about canon-yet-to-come, namely Jesse's eventual reveal as a speedster. I have not brought Wally into the speedster fold yet, simply because I don't have a handle on him as a character - no disrespect is intended.
> 
> This is also a sequel to [Recompense](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5965450) and ties in the storyline created in [The Seduction of Barry Allen](http://archiveofourown.org/series/382687). It also references story points of that latter series that have not yet been written/published, but will be.
> 
> Title from Mumford & Sons "Timshel"

**Nine Months Ago**

Harry sat with his back against the wall, not an unfamiliar sensation these days. The cement, though, was rough and cold against his bare skin – a contrast to the warm and naked body cradled against his torso. A body like his, still thrumming from desperate, needy, emotional sex.

"You really want me to stay?"

"Why do you keep asking that?" Barry turned around to face him. "You know how I feel."

Harry though he did, but he still wanted the reassurance. "I do. And you know how I feel."

Barry kissed him and pulled him away from the wall, onto the mattress and covered them with a blanket. 

Lying there, wrapped in contentment, Harry couldn't quite relax. There was something he needed to say. "Jesse can't know about this. About us."

"I understand. Nor can anyone else."

"Except Iris – you're going to tell her." That wasn't even a question."

Barry side-eyed him. "Yeah, eventually – if just because she knows when I'm keeping secrets and she'll be relentless until I tell her. But no one else." 

Harry frowned, Barry seemed way too blasé about this requirement. Maybe he was just accustomed to it, from the time when he …

Barry seemed to read his mind. "It's not that. I'm a masked superhero vigilante. My life is all about secrets. Besides, just think about dealing with Joe."

Harry had to agree. "That's true." The man shot at him and tried to beat him to a pulp a few times. God only knew what his reaction would be if he found about them. 

Barry had his own insecurities, though. "Are you sure _you_ want to stay? It's not going to be easy, you know. You have a life on your world."

"Had a life. My name is mud, now. There's talk of criminal prosecution." 

"And here you happen to share the name and the face of a confessed murderer. Do you want to live in the shadows for the rest of your life?"

"I'll manage." 

"Then, I guess that settles it. You are now the Chief Technology Officer of S.T.A.R. Labs. Whatever that means." Barry grinned. "Probably lots of paperwork."

"I hate paperwork."

"I know." Barry's face turned serious. "You need a place to live – Jesse's been happy staying at Joe's, but the two of you need to be together. And you can't keep living here in a store room."

"I'm not exactly mortgage-worthy at the moment, you know." 

"I can help with that."

"How?"'

"I sort of own a house."

"You do? Why?" 

Barry sighed. "I own a house for the same reason that I own S.T.A.R. Labs."

_Ahh_. "Thawne's place?"

"Yeah. It would be perfect for you and Jesse. Plenty of space, plenty of security. All the taxes are paid; the upkeep is taken care of. There's no reason why you two shouldn't live there."

Harry could think of a few, but he didn't voice them. "Your generosity makes me … uncomfortable."

"So, pay rent. I don't care. I can't sell the property and I don't want to live there. But I want you and Jesse to be happy and safe. She needs to put down roots – she can't do that in Iris' old bedroom while you're living here."

That truth made it easier accept Barry's offer. "Okay." He kissed Barry's shoulder, his neck, his jaw. "Thank you."

A week later, he and Jesse and Barry made the trip out to the place he was now going to call home. Although he and Jesse had lived in a high-rise apartment in their Central City, with all of the glass and hard, dramatic angles, this house in the woods was eerily similar. He hated it, but Jesse didn't. She loved the forest outside her window, the skylights, the lack of walls. 

Harry marveled how Barry knew that this would be the perfect place for his daughter after so many horrifying months in captivity.

So he accepted the gift with all of the graciousness he could muster and moved into the home of a somewhat deceased maniac speedster from the future and did his best to build a new life for himself and his daughter.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Iris brought him coffee and a muffin, sat down next to him and said, "I can tell that you're keeping secrets again, Bar."

Barry sighed. "Of course you can."

"What type of best friend would I be if I couldn't?" She squeezed his shoulder.

"Not a good one, I guess."

They were in his lab at the top of the CCPD and it was late – the shift had changed and no one would come up here at this hour, no one other than Joe. But Joe was out of town, at a police conference in Coast City and he'd taken Wally with him. "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course – like I just said, I'm your best friend. You're mine. There's nothing you can't tell me."

Barry licked his lips. "It's not pretty and it's kind of complicated. You might not like me so much after I tell you."

"Barry, there is _nothing_ you can say or do that will make me think any less of you."

"Okay. Okay." He took a deep breath and just let it all flow out. "For six months, I was in a sexual relationship with Harrison Wells – the imposter."

Iris didn't seem at all shocked. "I'd wondered."

"Really?"

"That time, when Eddie and I ran into the two of you at _Amaro's_. I know that Harrison – " She shook her head. "I never know what to call that bastard, and I won't call him Thawne because that's Eddie's name, but he really wasn't Harrison Wells."

"Call him Harrison, if it's easier. I won't confuse him with Harry."

"Okay – Harrison. I know he said he wanted steak and scotch and you were his just driver, but I didn't believe a word of that. There was no "just" about how he looked at you – like you were a piece of meat and he'd just given up vegetarianism. And you couldn't take your eyes off him, either. Eddie thought it was really creepy – not that you were two guys – but the way he watched you. And how angry he'd been at our interruption."

Barry let out a sigh. "Yeah – we'd been together for a few weeks by then. It was … intense."

Iris cupped his cheek. "You did nothing wrong, Barry. He took advantage of you. Your trust, your affection. He deceived you in the worst possible way."

Barry remembered the conversation he'd had with Harry before they'd rescued Jesse. How Harry had used very similar words. And he admitted something to Iris that he could never tell the other man, although it was probably no great secret. "I thought I loved him."

"You're not sure, now?"

"Oh, I know I didn't. It was hero worship, adulation, an anticipated response to a carefully written script. Eobard – " Barry was proud he didn't choke on that name anymore, "was nothing if not careful. But I know now that what I felt wasn't real."

Iris met his gaze. "There's more, isn't there?" 

He nodded, but before he could say anything, Iris blew him away. "It's Harry, isn't it?"

"How did you figure it out?"

"Well, I'm not an investigative journalist for nothing. But I have eyes and I can see. And I _know_ you."

"Iris …" He didn't buy that for a moment.

"Okay. The truth – about a week after everything went down with Zoom, I might have also seen you coming out of a storage room in S.T.A.R. Labs. The one where Harry had been sleeping."

"And you didn't say anything? Why?"

"Because I didn't know for sure and I didn't want to make things difficult for you. But the truth is, after that, it hasn't been difficult to see what's going on between you two."

"You don't find it weird? Disgusting?"

"Not at all. Harry is not Harrison Wells – Eobard. He's not someone who will tell you what you want to hear, to build you up. Harry's an ass, Barry. But I trust him."

"Really?" Barry couldn't help but remember that she'd been badly injured because Harry had stolen some of his speed.

"He's a father. Everything he did was to save his daughter. Joe would have done the same thing for me."

Barry had to smile – that was almost the speech he'd given Joe and Caitlin and Cisco when they'd locked Harry in the pipeline, when he'd begged then to send him back to his own dimension so he could _try_ to save his daughter, his world. 

She'd then asked, "Do you love him?"

"More than I ever thought possible. Don't you dare laugh, but after Zoom and there was a chance of Harry going back to his world permanently, I felt like I was losing everything." He shook his head at the memory. "What I feel for Harry is so much more than anything I felt for Eobard. It's raw and messy and painful. We cut at each other all the time, but we heal each other, too."

"He loves you, too, Bar. I can see it." Iris squeezed his hand. "And you're right, it's messy and it's brutal and it's also kind of scary the way he looks at you."

"What do you mean?"

"He's puzzled by you, but he's frightened, too. Like you're going to realize that you're half his age and you're going to want to find someone more … I don't know … age appropriate. He seems so desperate about you."

Barry gave her a sad laugh, not so sure she was seeing something that really wasn't there. "That's kind of ironic, since that's pretty much how I feel about him most of the time. Like he's going to realize that this isn't what he wants anymore, that he wants to go home to all that gloss and perfection, to the world he built with all its advancements. We're pretty primitive here in comparison. Every day, I wonder if he's going to tell me he's tired of this life and he's going to go home. That he's going to collapse the portal from the other side and I'll never see him again."

"No, he's not. You're an idiot if you think that. He's happy here – even I can see that. He's happy because of you.'

Barry smiled. "Thank you – I really needed to hear that."

"What are best friends for, if not to help each other through our emotional crises?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Now, Or Nine Months Since the Last Chapter**

Barry wasn't accustomed to feeling like a coward. A failure, yes. Inadequate, certainly. But he couldn't remember ever feeling quite this horrible and scared and unable to do a damn thing.

Okay – not true. After his mom was killed and his dad was sent to prison, he had spent most of his pre-teen and teenage years feeling horrible and scared and helpless. Those feelings had returned – and were magnified a thousand-fold – in the months after he'd learned that the man he'd worshipped, the man he had given everything to, was his mother's murderer. They'd only abated when that bastard had done the unexpected and confessed, paving the way for his father's freedom.

But this was different. Until this moment, he'd never run from a fight, no matter how badly he knew it was going to turn out. Now, though, all he wanted to do was run away and hide. He didn't want to deal with _this_ but eventually, he'd have to. And it just might cost him his life. Or the best thing that ever happened to him. 

Or both, and he didn't know which would be worse.

At least he could talk to Iris about it. She was the only one who could help him. The only one who would understand this problem. Even if she was no longer the love of his life, Iris was his best friend and the keeper of his secrets. He'd texted her before he left the CCPD lab and she promised to meet him at Jitters by eight.

He had an hour to waste and he burned it in his usual manner – running. Only tonight, he couldn't take any joy from the speed.

A few laps between the city and the badlands, a sprint up to Iron Heights, a jaunt to Star City and back were enough to kill the time and clear his head. And naturally, he was ten minutes late. And Iris, unlike him, was punctual and waiting for him at an upstairs table at Jitters, with two cups of coffee in front of her. 

He greeted her with an almost desperate hug.

She gave him a worried look. "Hey, Bar. What's going on?"

He scrubbed his face and tried to find the words.

"Barry?" Iris pulled his hands away and stared into his eyes. "You can tell me."

He sighed.

"Is it Harry?"

"Yeah – kinda…" 

He sipped his coffee and grimaced. It was cold and kind of foul-tasting. He made sure that no one was looking and wrapped his hands around the cup and vibrated. 

Iris saw what he was doing and grinned. "It must be nice being your own personal microwave." She pushed her cup towards him and he gave it the same treatment. In thanks, she continued to press him about his problems. "Tell me, what's going on? Is Harry leaving?"

"No."

"Then what's the matter?"

"It's Jesse."

Iris looked puzzled. "Is she all right?" 

"Yeah – she's doing really well. She's a lot stronger than you could imagine."

"She'd have to be – to last even a day in Zoom's clutches." Iris sipped and made a face at her coffee. Barry could reheat it, but he couldn't control what that heat did to the coffee. "What's wrong, then?"

"She has a crush on me." Barry felt nauseous even saying that. 

"What? Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I overheard her talking to Caitlin about it. I was on the treadmill and I'd left my comm link on. She asked her if I was seeing anybody and why not, because I'm apparently the best looking guy she's ever met and I'm so nice and so smart and so fast and strong and I rescued her, and did Caitlin think I could be interested in her." Barry let out in a rush. "She's always looking for me when I'm at the lab and asking me things. Personal stuff." He buried his face in his hands. "She's so young and she's been through so much. I don't want to hurt her. If I do, Harry will slaughter me. He might do that anyway – just on principle."

"Barry – listen to yourself! Harry loves you. He wouldn't do anything remotely like that."

"It's his daughter, Iris. He's killed people to get her back." Barry instantly regretted saying that. She didn’t need to know that he'd murdered Russell Glossen in cold blood. 

Thankfully, Iris misinterpreted what he meant, thinking that he'd killed people in the battle with Zoom. "So have you."

"That's not the same. Harry's so protective of her, nothing and no one is more important to him than Jesse. And that's the way it should be. She's his child. Joe would do the same thing, if someone he was seeing hurt you."

Iris was outraged on his behalf. "But you haven't done anything."

He shrugged. "I don't think that's going to matter. She's going to ask me out and when she does, I'm going to have to say something. If I lie, it's only going to be worse. And when Harry finds out … "

Iris cut to the heart of the matter. "Are you really scared of him?" Now she sounded worried.

He rested his head in his hands. "No. Not really – I'm just terrified that he'll leave. That he won't risk Jesse getting hurt again."

"Talk to him, Bar. Don't let him find out from someone else. You know that keeping secrets is the worst thing for any relationship."

"That's true." He remembered all of the secrets he'd kept from Iris, from Patty, from Linda – how damaging they were.

"And while you're at it …"

He knew what she was going to say, "No, Iris. I'm not telling anyone else."

"Someone's going to find out. You're going to slip, or Harry's going to. Someone's going to see the two of you together. And the way you eye-fuck each other when you're not alone, it's kind of amazing that no one's figured it out yet."

"Iris!"

"You do, and it's all kinds of awesome. But I'm not the only one who has eyes and brains and can draw the right conclusions. Someone's going to put two and two together and finally come up with four. What if it's Jesse? Imagine how she'll feel? What happens if your dad finds out? Or worse, what will happen if _my_ dad finds out before you tell him?"

Barry sand deeper into despair. "Joe would try to shoot him _again_. Or beat him to a bloody pulp."

She chuckled. "Dad can be an over-protective asshole and a little one-note when it comes to us. He tends to forget that we're not twelve anymore."

"That's true." Barry laughed. "But one hurdle at a time. I'll talk to Harry about Jesse." He tried not to panic, not to grieve at what he was likely to lose.

"And if he behaves like an ass, let me know. I still have that poodle-shooter Dad gave me last year. I'll kneecap him – and he'll never see me coming."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Harrison Wells was no longer his name. It was strange, but he didn't miss it.

Thanks to Barry's friend in Star City – and a conveniently dead infant – he was now Harry Wellsen Chambers. Nine months ago, when he decided to stay here permanently, he began the process of remaking himself, stripping away the parts of his personality – the smooth-talking scientist and entrepreneur who'd built a fortune on top of a fatal lie – that were no longer necessary for survival. His name was the first to go. 

These days, on this Earth, he was ostensibly the chief technology officer of a vast, but empty, facility that was once S.T.A.R. Labs. He was perpetually grumpy and bad tempered and found that working with three people – four if he counted his prodigy daughter – was a hell of a lot more enjoyable than overseeing a vast scientific empire. He drew a relatively modest salary, paid his taxes, and lived with his daughter in an isolated fortress of glass and steel that once belonged to a man (no, a maniac) from the future. A maniac who had stolen his doppelganger's face and his name, and with deliberate intent, caused the same chaos on this world that he had on his own.

Harry didn't particularly like living in the imposter's home, knowing what once went on there. He never said anything, understanding that Barry preferred not to speak about the past and the sick, twisted game that Thawne had played. 

Which was why he'd refused to take the master bedroom, and at Jesse's innocent suggestion, he'd had the furniture removed and turned it into a dojo. It was a good place to exorcize own his demons and to train his daughter in martial arts: t'ai chi ch'uan to help her find her emotional ground, and more aggressive forms to ensure that no one could even try hurt her without getting hurt back. Or worse.

He wished, though, that this place didn't hold such bitter memories for Barry. After he'd turned the keys over and helped him reset the security codes, Barry hadn't come back. Not once in the past nine months. It was the height of quixotic foolishness, but Harry found himself longing for Barry's company in ordinary domestic moments, to share his evenings with him, to share the life he was building here. To have something more than stolen moments, to be each other's dirty secret.

Of course, that was his fault. He was the one who'd insisted on secrecy. He didn't want Jesse to know about his relationship with Barry. He didn't want her to feel that her father's heart was divided. But maybe that was a mistake. 

But Jesse adored Barry – that was clear from the time they spent together at the lab. He was the perfect mentor for a budding speedster, and she wouldn't resent his presence here. But Barry wouldn't step foot inside Eobard Thawne's house and Harry was too afraid to push.

It was bad enough being in love, it was worse when he wasn't so sure that the love could be reciprocated.

At the end of another long day at the lab, Harry went looking for his daughter. She wasn't hard to find, hanging out with Ramon and Snow in the Cortex.

"You ready to go home?" When he didn't get an answer, Harry stuck his hands in his pockets and waited for Ramon to finish telling Jesse some elaborate physics joke about a litter of kittens all named Schrödinger. It was good to hear her laugh.

When she started with her own joke, Harry dropped his satchel and resigned himself to an endless delay. He began reviewing some of the proposals and grant requests that had started arriving after several low key announcements had been made about S.T.A.R Labs becoming an institute for meta-human research. Of course, they were all crap.

"Are we leaving or are we going to spend the night here?" Jesse was standing in front of him, tapping her foot.

Harry didn't bother to tell her he'd been waiting for her for over an hour. There was no point.

Once they were in the car, he asked, "Dinner? Anything you want?"

"Had a couple of Cisco's energy bars when I finished my run, but I wouldn't mind stopping at Big Belly Burger."

Harry grinned, "Like father, like daughter."

"Except that you're having only one, and I need at least four with extra pickles. Plus fries and a shake."

"I'd be jealous, if the idea wasn't so revolting."

Jesse laughed and the sound went right through him. He'd never tire of hearing it.

They picked up the order, and Jesse had two of her four burgers before they got home. She belched delicately as he pulled the car into the garage. "Sorry, Dad."

"At least you're not spitting up on my shoulder anymore."

"Ewww, gross."

"Babies are kind of gross. And yet they grow up to become beautiful young women like you."

She punched his shoulder, obviously embarrassed by his compliment. It all felt so wonderfully normal. In the kitchen they rarely used, he had his own burger while Jesse finished her meal, and she was kind enough to let him have some of her shake. It was disgusting and delicious and he slapped a hand over his eye as his brain froze.

She snickered.

"Evil spawn."

"I'm all yours. Well, have yours, half mom's."

"An indisputable fact."

"Mom used to say that when I got into trouble, I was all yours, though."

"Hah! Your mother invented trouble. I was an angel." Thank goodness that was a complete and utter lie.

Jesse gave him an arch look. "Angels don't steal pulse rifles from their wife's college roommate's doppelganger."

"And where did you hear that?"

"Caitlin might have mentioned it when we went to visit Aunt Tina today – excuse me, Doctor McGee. Although she did say it was okay to call her Aunt Tina if I wanted. She's not all that different, you know."

Harry had avoided Mercury Labs and its head, Christina McGee, as much as possible, but not completely. She was one of the very few outsiders who knew where he came from. He'd apologized for his theft but refused – point blank – to return the weapon. There were still meta-humans out there attacking the city and his daughter needed protection. He didn't tell her that Barry – the Flash – needed his protection, too.

Tina agreed not to press for the gun's return, but demanded a favor-to-be-named-later. Probably some key research or his left nut, if she was anything like her counterpart.

They cleaned up the small mess and headed into to the living room. Jesse flopped down on the couch and Harry asked, "Want to watch a movie?" Back on the world they'd left behind, he'd usually been too busy for such mundane, home-bound activities, but he relished them now. "I'll even sit through 'Age of Ultron' again, if you want." He hated comic book movies, but Jesse loved them, and this one in particular – she had a soft spot for the doomed Dr. Banner. They'd watched it maybe a half-dozen times.

"No – but maybe tomorrow." Jesse was biting her lip and twirling her hair, behavior he hadn't seen since she was thirteen. "Can we talk?" She sounded nervous.

Harry froze. Were there three more evil words in the English language? "About what?" _Could she know about Barry?_ He sat down next to her. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing's wrong." She laughed and still twirled her hair, then stopped and dropped her hands in her lap. "I just want to ask you something."

_Shit, she knows._

"It's about Barry."

"Sweetheart…"

"I think he's really cute."

"What?" Harry's brain came to a screeching halt. "Cute?"

"Yeah. He's really cute, Dad. And he's not all that much older than I am. I can't believe he's not dating anyone."

His brain started functioning again, but too slowly. All he could manage was one-word questions. "Dating?"

Jesse nodded. "He's so perfect. But I guess with the whole superhero-vigilante-secret identity thing going on, it's probably hard to have a relationship."

"Why are you worried about Barry Allen's social life?" God, his voice sounded so harsh.

"Not worried about it, Dad."

"Why are you even thinking about it?"

"Dad – " Jesse rolled her eyes at him. "I'm eighteen. And I like him."

"Barry Allen's twenty-seven. He's nine years older than you. Almost ten."

"So? It's not like I'm a typical teenager, anyway."

"He's not a typical twenty-seven year old."

"So – you don't think it would be a good idea if I asked him out? You don't think he'll like me?" Jesse's voice was small and kind of sad. Harry just wanted to pull his daughter into his arms and assure her that everything would be all right.

"I think you two have a lot in common, but I don't think you should be thinking about romance right now." Harry couldn't continue. _This was what happened when you kept secrets from the people you loved._

His daughter whispered, "I just want to be normal." 

That last word almost killed him. "I know, sweetheart, I know." She threw herself into his arms and sobbed. He'd sacrificed everything to keep her safe and well and happy. But he couldn't give her this.

The storm passed and Jesse rubbed her face on his shoulder. "Sorry – I made a mess." 

Harry glanced over and saw streaks of snot decorating the black fabric. "What was that I said about being grateful you were no longer spitting up on my shoulder?"

Jesse let out a watery laugh. "I'll do the laundry tomorrow."

Harry nodded. The subject might have changed for the moment, but he knew that Jesse wasn't going to let this go. "Have you talked to Barry?"

She shrugged. "Kinda. Well, kinda not. I didn't ask him out or anything. I just …" She flushed. "I probably shouldn't. He's not going to want to go out with someone who isn't old enough to drink."

Harry tried to distract her. "You know that speedsters can't get drunk."

"What?" Jesse seemed outraged. "I'm not old enough to drink, but when I will be, I won't even get buzzed? That's so unfair."

"Trust me, intoxication isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Besides, you'll have the Speed Force, remember?"

Jesse nodded. "That is true." She rested her head on his shoulder and stared off into the distance. "Dad?"

"Yeah, sweetheart?"

"I'll be okay."

Harry felt like his heart was about to break. He kissed her temple. "I know you will."

"Love you."

"Love you, too." _More than you could ever know._


	3. Chapter 3

Barry didn't take Iris' advice about talking to Harry. 

Every imaginary conversation he had with Harry ended badly. Jesse was always going to come first for Harry. Like he'd told Iris, that was how it should be. He'd already seen how ruthless Harry could be when Jesse's life was in danger. He'd killed for her, he'd bargained with Zoom for her. He was willing to – albeit reluctantly – to sacrifice _him_ , even after they'd become lovers, to save her.

Why should this be any different, especially if he was the one who caused the pain?

So he kept quiet and for the entire week avoided the "Chambers", father and daughter – as much as he could. Which, admittedly, wasn't easy. He was still the Flash, with all the responsibilities that entailed. He still needed to work with Jesse to help build her speed and strength. He was still there, every damn day, waiting for the inevitable disaster.

At least he could avoid being alone with Harry's daughter. Overseeing the development of her nascent speedster powers wasn't a solo endeavor. Cisco and Caitlin were necessary fixtures in the training facilities, and despite her obvious crush, Jesse was a delight to work with.

And unless Harry was observing, he still kept himself mostly in Cisco's workroom, out of sight, and out of Barry's way. Since this thing between them started, it was easier to keep their relationship a secret if they pretended they wanted nothing to do with each other, that they had nothing to say to each other. 

There was no pretense, though, when Harry came back to the lab in the small hours of the morning, after spending the evening with Jesse. That's when Barry came back, too. This was their place, where they made love on a hard mattress in the same empty storage room where Harry had lived for all those months before Jesse's rescue.

And yes, despite the seedy surroundings, the utter lack of ambiance or comfort, they were – at least to Barry – making love. Their couplings were often brutal struggles for dominance, which wasn't a question of who was topping who, but who was willing to take and not give. Harry wanted to make sure that he wasn't tainted by what Thawne had seduced from him, and Barry wanted him to know that he could never, ever mistake him for the imposter. He wanted Harry to understand that he was giving him everything – not just his body and his heart, but his trust, too.

Most of the time, though, he wasn't sure that the message was received.

It was late. He'd finished patrolling hours ago and had exchanged the suit for his street clothes. He didn't want to go home to an empty apartment, and he couldn't go to S.T.A.R. Labs – not when he knew that Harry was there, waiting for him. 

Which made him feel even worse.

In the hours after he signed off with the team, he did something unusual for him, he walked the streets like an ordinary person. Sometimes it was easier to not to think when he had to pay attention to his surroundings. 

A little before midnight, he turned towards home. Where he found Harry waiting for him, dressed in black leather from head to toe, shod in a knee-high engineer boots, one foot tucked up and flat against the wall, his motorcycle helmet held casually in one hand.

But there was nothing casual in his expression, his blue eyes were blazing brighter than an indium laser, and his mouth was set in a tight line.

Barry swallowed. "Is everything all right?"

"You tell me. I've been at the lab, waiting for you, every night this week. You haven't answered my texts. You won't talk to me; you won't even meet my eyes." Harry laughed, the sound harsh and unpleasant and too loud in the quiet hallway. "Congratulations, Allen – you've made me regress to my wonderfully insecure teenage years. All I need is acne and an uncontrollable hard-on to complete my humiliation."

Barry sucked in his breath. Harry only called him by his last name when he was feeling particularly upset. At least he didn't say " _Mister Allen_ ". Eobard had used that to make him feel like a colleague, an equal, and he had responded to it as if he was one of Pavlov's damn dogs.

Barry got out his keys and opened the door to his apartment, gesturing for Harry to precede him. It was a studio, big enough for a king-sized bed, a kitchenette and a decent bathroom. It was also, thankfully, clean. Sometime in the last year, he'd grown up and stopped living like a college kid, leaving his crap all over the place.

Harry dropped his helmet on the floor and stared at him. He looked like he was about to throw a punch, and knowing the man, Barry thought that a likely possibility. So he apologized with an excuse. "I'm sorry. I've had some … things to work through."

Harry wasn't accepting his excuse so easily. "What things?"

Barry shook his head. "Just things. Nothing to do with you."

Harry grabbed him, fury giving him speed. "Don't lie to me, don't _ever_ fucking lie to me."

Barry shook him off. "I'm not – I just…" He sighed. "What was it that you said to me, back in the beginning, after the first time? Do you remember?"

Harry stared at him and Barry could see him trying to recall the moment he was asking about. "No – I don't think I do."

"That we were stupidly perfect for each other, because you'd finally met anyone as emotionally constipated as you were."

That got him a slightly less bitter laugh. "Yeah, I do remember saying that."

Barry reached out and stroked Harry's face, choosing his words very carefully. "I'm sorry I've been so distant. Please trust me when I say it has nothing to do with how I feel about you." 

"And you won't tell me what the problem is?"

"Not yet, okay?"

Harry shook his head. "Maybe that should be "not ever"?" 

Barry hated how wrecked Harry looked. How desperate he sounded. He hated that he was the one who caused this pain. He forced Harry to look him in the eye. "Trust me; my feelings for you do not require any deep introspection. I love you. You. Not the other one. Don't ever think that."

Harry leaned into him. "I hate feeling like this. So fucking needy and insecure."

Barry wrapped his arms around Harry, offering reassurance with his body and his words. "I'm here for you. Always."

Suddenly, Harry's hands were on him, hot and hard and _everywhere_. He was pulling at Barry's clothes, worming under too many layers of fabric, seeking the connection to skin. Barry didn't fight as Harry push-pulled him towards the bed.

Nor did he use his speed to get them both naked – Harry usually hated that. He didn't want any speedster tricks when they were together, although he never minded Barry's almost non-existent refractory period and the occasional jolt of lightning. And his vibrating.

Barry stayed passive. That was what Harry seemed to need right now. He let the other man take control, doing with him what he wanted, stripping the clothes from his body, muttering imprecations at Barry's preference for tight jeans.

"I thought you liked my ass in them?"

"I prefer your ass out of them." Harry growled as he pulled and yanked and finally got them off, together with his sneakers, his briefs, and one sock. He tossed the tangled mess on the floor and started to take off his own clothes.

"No, leave them on."

Harry looked at him, one eyebrow raised. "Since when did you develop a leather kink?" 

"Since I saw you standing in the hallway, looking like every wet dream I never wanted to admit I had."

Harry smiled; a half twist of his lips. "Can I at least take my jacket off?"

Barry nodded, "But leave the boots on."

"Boot kink, too?"

"Yeah." It felt like all the air in the room was used up, he could barely get that syllable out. He strained for more words. "If you don't mind?"

Now Harry grinned, a full-fledged, very toothy smile. "I don't mind. Not at all." 

Harry shed his jacket, but not before pulling out a pair of thin black leather gloves. He locked eyes with Barry and slowly put them on, only breaking his gaze to travel down his sweating torso, stopping at his massively erect and leaking cock. "No, I definitely don't mind."

Barry understood that in the very long life ahead of him, most of his memories of this time and place would fade, but this night would be etched in his memory forever.

He'd been lying semi-prone against the pillows, legs splayed, completely naked except for one sock hanging from his left foot. Harry pulled that off, then pulled him down towards the edge of the bed, his hands – his leather-covered hands – almost bruisingly hard on his hips. "Lube?"

Barry tilted his head towards the nightstand, and then blushed when he realized what else was in that drawer. Harry noticed, and if anything, his grin broadened. "Oooh, what am I going to find?" 

Barry bit his lip, not sure if he should be embarrassed or aroused, or aroused by his embarrassment. 

Harry found the lube. And his favorite sex toy. He held it aloft and laughed softly. "So they have Bad-Dragon.com here too? Was wondering." He tossed it back in the drawer. "Not tonight, though."

Barry panted, "Good. Want you, want your cock."

Something softened in Harry's look. "Ask and you shall receive. But first…" He flipped open the cap on the lube and squirted some on his gloved hand. "Spread wider."

Barry complied, and shivered when a cool, leather-clad hand lifted his balls, exposing his hole. Harry started working his lube-slicked finger into him. The leather was a little rough against his flesh, thickening Harry's wicked fingers, but it felt good. He closed his eyes to concentrate on the sensation, when a hard slap on his flank brought him back into the moment. 

"Look at me, Barry. Don't close your eyes."

The desperation in Harry's voice was back and Barry knew just what the other man was thinking. But he didn't say anything, didn't offer reassurances. He knew that words were not going to heal his own wounds or ease Harry's fears. So he kept his eyes open and locked into Harry's burning blue gaze. 

"Do you like that?" The bastard twisted his fingers, knocking against his joy button, and he screamed. 

"I will take that as a yes." Harry repeated the gesture and Barry came in a rush, come splashing over his belly. 

He kept his eyes open, but for an eternal second, all he could see was bright, blinding blue – the color of an endless autumn sky – the color of Harry's eyes. Over his pounding heart, he could hear Harry crooning, "Beautiful, so beautiful. But we've only just begun."

Barry held onto that voice and let it drawn him back into reality. Blue faded into the muted shadows of his apartment, Harry's face, so intent on giving him pleasure; his torso, outlined in a tight black shirt, his arms, pale and strong. His cock erupting from those leather pants. The world shifted again as Harry hoisted his legs, easing one of his shoulder, wrapping the other against his waist. 

Harry penetrated him bare – there was no disease he could give him – easing in millimeter by millimeter, and Barry could feel every vein, every pore of skin through the slick. He tried to push himself against Harry, tried to deepen the penetration, but those gloved hands were clamped tight, holding him back with fearsome determination.

Too many excruciatingly slow moments later, Harry was buried to his balls and Barry had come again, clamping down tight. He could feel the lightning gently course over his skin, but he was still in control. At least until Harry started stroking in and out, pulling at the elemental power in his very cells. It was more than pleasure, more than lust, and when Harry let his leg drop down to his waist to climb over him, to made the connection complete, his control broke again.

Harry bit his lip, then thrust his tongue deep, mimicking the penetration below.

Barry wrapped his legs around Harry's waist, loving the feel of the worn leather against his calves, the chafing of the button fly against his inner thighs. He held Harry there – the speedster's strength in his legs was immense – but Harry wasn't without his own tricks, grinding against him, his come soaking through the tee shirt, lubricating them both.

Harry broke the kiss and buried his face against his neck. Barry was waiting for the feel of teeth and tongue – Harry was a biter and he reveled in the all-too-temporary marks left after most of their lovemaking.

But not now. Harry was whispering and it was hard for Barry to hear over the thudding of his heart, but he concentrated and could finally make out the words.

"Tell me please tell me please tell me please pleasepleaseplease…"

Barry threaded his fingers through that ridiculous mop of hair and held Harry close as he whispered back, "Love you, always. I love you. I love you. I love you."

Maybe it was the words, or maybe it was the lightning that Barry could no longer keep under control, or maybe his ass clamping down around Harry's cock and his teeth on Harry's neck in his fourth orgasm, but Harry began to rock against him, harder and more desperate. He loosened his legs and let Harry move freely, but it didn't last. Harry came with a groan and collapsed against him.

His words broken, his voice broken, Harry still begged, "Don't leave me, please don't leave."

Barry cradled him close; loathe to lose their physical connection. "Never." But he knew that Harry would ultimately leave him. Time would steal this man from him, just as it would steal everyone else he would ever love.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Harry was a light sleeper – ever wakeful, even after sex. But tonight was an exception; he didn't quite doze off after he pulled out of Barry, but it was close. The other man lingered next to him for a few minutes – or maybe a few hours, Harry couldn't tell. He felt boneless, enervated.

At peace. 

He didn't say anything when Barry got out of bed and began to undress him, starting with the gloves.

Who would have thought that the boy – no, _man_ – was so kinky? He hadn't, and he didn't mind at all. Barry asked so little of him, and when he thought about it, it was kind of nice to be sexually objectified – if just for a little while.

He didn't move when Barry pulled the come-soaked tee shirt off his torso, but he did grimace as the wetness dragged across his face.

"Sorry."

"Hmm, s'okay." He rolled onto his back and watched Barry through half-lidded eyes as he removed his boots, unnecessarily undoing the buckles – it took too much effort to tell him to just pull.

The leather pants – which he'd thought were a ridiculous affectation when Jesse urged him to buy them – were going to get a place of honor in his closet.

He barely felt Barry strip his briefs and socks off, but he did feel him soothe away the pressure marks his socks left on his ankles. "Foot fetish, too?"

"Nah. Just like taking care of you."

"Mmm. Like that, too."

Barry disappeared in a slightly muted flash of red, but was back in a handful of heartbeats, a wet washcloth in one hand, a towel in the other. Harry sighed in delight as the warm cloth wiped away the stickiness, and again as he was carefully dried. Barry pressed a kiss to his temple as he pulled up the covers. 

"Sleep, if you can."

"Will, if you join me."

"In a moment."

Harry didn't keep track of the time, but it felt like an age before Barry returned to the bed and slipped in beside him. They spooned, Harry curving his body around Barry's, intertwining their fingers over his stomach. Without conscious thought, he matched his lover's breathing and slept.


	4. Chapter 4

Barry woke when he felt Harry get out of bed. "Everything okay?"

"It's a little before five, I need to get home. Go back to sleep."

Instead of listening to Harry, he reached for the lamp and turned it on. "It's okay – I have an early shift at the precinct. Might as well get up now." He tossed back the blankets. "Want to share a shower?"

"Are you asking me because you want to conserve water, or because…?" 

Barry smiled at the unfinished question. "Or because I was thinking that someone deserved a blowjob?"

Harry smiled back. "And dare I hope that someone would be me?"

"Could be." He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, set the coffee maker to brew and held out his hand to Harry. He didn't need to tell his lover that he'd fantasized about this since he'd rented the apartment. There was no bathtub, just a large shower stall, big enough to accommodate two tall men. Or one tall man and one kneeling man.

He cautioned Harry, "You'll have to be quiet, though. Sound echoes through the pipes."

"I think I can manage."

Barry took that as a challenge, demonstrating just how creatively he could use his power, vibrating his larynx, his tongue, the fingers he'd slipped up Harry's ass. Harry only managed to keep from screaming by biting his forearm.

Later, over coffee, Harry stated, "You're evil, you know that."

"I am, and you love it." Barry grinned over the edge of his coffee cup, taking in the pleasure of the moment. How often had he imagined a morning just like this, the two of them sharing a moment out of time. 

"Don't suppose you'd mind lending me underwear and a pair of socks. And a tee shirt."

"No need." Barry retrieved Harry's now clean and mostly dry clothes from the chair where he'd left them last night. "Not only do I function as a human vibrator, I'm pretty good at laundry, too." He held up his hands and demonstrated. "Better than any machine agitation. And just a little faster and I can dry, too. Not completely, though – otherwise they'd catch fire."

Harry grinned. "That is very useful. And very annoying."

Barry didn't bother to respond to that last comment; it was an old joke between them. He watched Harry dress and wondered if now was a good time to talk. What happened here seemed to settle some of his fears.

"Harry?"

The man looked up, "What?" 

"Last night, remember when I said I was working through some things…"

"Things you didn't want to talk about, yeah. I'm old, but I'm not senile. Not yet, at least." Harry finished buckling his boots and sat down at the counter. "You ready to talk now?"

He nodded, suddenly regretting that decision.

Harry picked up his hand. "Tell me."

"Jesse has a crush on me." Barry let out in a rush. "I overheard her talking to Caitlin – I haven't done anything to encourage it and I never would. I don't want to hurt her and I don't know what to do." He pulled his hand free and covered his face. "Don't be angry, please." 

"That's what's been bothering you?" Harry's voice was quiet.

Barry nodded, looking up. "Jesse's the most important person in the world to you. There's nothing you wouldn't do to keep her safe and happy."

Harry didn't say anything, but he continued to stare at him. Barry couldn't help but wish he'd kept his mouth shut.

"Please, say something."

"You're an idiot, Allen." 

"What?"

"Did you seriously think I'd be angry at you over that?" That I'd do something … drastic?"

"I thought you'd leave. Go back, close the breach from the other side." He wiped his mouth, the coffee aftertaste sour on his tongue.

"Or worse?"

He nodded again.

"Like I said, you're an idiot. And you're not a father."

"What do you mean?"

"I will protect my child from everything I possibly can. But that list doesn't include the normal experiences – even the hurts – that are part of growing up. Otherwise, she'll never be able to stand on her own two feet."

"But Jesse's been through so much …"

"She has, but thankfully, she is still a normal teenage girl. With normal feelings. You're young, handsome, and smart enough to keep up with her. You also a speedster and you're with her on a daily basis, helping her grow into her own powers. She likes you, she can relate to you. It's only natural."

Barry let out a deep breath. "You are surprisingly rational about this. Why?"

"Two things. First, I've had a little bit of time to get used to the knowledge that my daughter has a crush on my lover." 

"Huh?" Barry was confused, but that didn't stop the rush of delight at Harry calling him his lover.

"A couple of nights ago, Jesse told me she liked you. I gently managed to dissuade her from pursuing you. Even if we weren't together, I don't think that she needs a romantic distraction."

"You never think that _anyone_ needs a romantic distraction. Yourself included."

"That's true." Harry chuckled. 

"So, what's the second reason you're not freaking out?"

"She's not crushing on Ramon. That would be utterly unbearable."

Barry laughed, understanding Harry's attempt at humor, but he still felt the need to defend his friend. "Hey, that's not fair. Cisco's a good guy."

"Who routinely develops weapons of mass distraction. The two of them together might just bring about the end of the entire multiverse." Harry leaned over and kissed him. "When you're a father, you'll understand."

Barry stiffened. 

"What's the matter?"

"I'm never going to have that."

"Barry?"

He shook his head; infinitely sorry he'd opened this can of worms. "I'm sterile, Harry. It was one of the first things that Caitlin checked when I woke up from the coma. My sperm is incompatible for fertilization." He watched the dawning comprehension on Harry's face, along with a hint of pity.

Harry kissed him again. "Or maybe you just need to figure out how to make it work."

He shrugged. "Maybe."

"I have to go, will you be okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." Barry pushed aside his feelings. He'd had two years to become used to the idea. It was just one more thing he'd lost that weighed against the dubious quality of everything he'd gained.

"You sure?" Harry tipped his chin up, his eyes searching and leaving him nowhere to hide.

"I … am." 

Harry nodded, seeing how unwilling he was to pursue the subject. He picked up his jacket and helmet. "We still can't tell Jesse, she's not ready yet. You understand, don't you?"

"I do." It seemed that he couldn't manage more than two-word answers at the moment.

"See you later?"

Barry nodded and Harry left. A few moments later, he went over to the window and watched his lover mount his bike, a rather fearsome all-black Harley low-rider. The big engine turned over, the rumble shattering the pre-dawn quiet in this residential neighborhood. 

He noticed Harry looking up and waved. His lover waved back before pulling away from the curb and speeding off.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

It was close to six AM when Harry pulled up to the garage attached to house – about an hour later than he'd wanted. Unlike the nights they'd spend on that uncomfortable mattress in the abandoned storage room, he'd found it too easy to keep dozing in the warm bed, long after his internal alarm clock went off.

He disengaged the protections around the house. Hand print, retinal scan, voice commands – the building was as secure as a military fortress, but as penetrable as a cardboard box. The glass walls were almost two inches thick, the roof panels only slightly thinner, but it was glass and still vulnerable.

But the truth was that there was really no technology that would keep out a determined meta-human, and trying would only serve to reinforce Jesse's fears. The security that Thawne had built in to the structure was a big part of the reason he'd moved here, the other was that Jesse actually liked it. She said she didn't feel trapped or caged, and that was enough for him.

The sun was burning through the morning fog and filling the inner atrium with light. The house should have been quiet, but there was music coming from the room that he'd turned into a dojo – Shakuhachi – a type of Japanese flute music that Jesse had taken to playing while working on her t'ai chi form. 

Harry had told her he found it amusing that she was practicing an ancient Chinese martial art to Japanese music. Jesse had replied that while the music was Japanese, the instrument had originated in China, and therefore did not offer any cultural contradictions. She also added that the lacquer used in the manufacture of a traditional flute was mildly poisonous, producing a rash akin to poison ivy.

Regardless, he found the music irritating and couldn't understand how his daughter could listen to it, especially while practicing t'ai chi. She'd just shrugged and turned up the volume, effectively ending the conversation.

But Harry was willing to brave a few minutes of atonal noise to watch Jesse move smoothly through the meditative exercises the way only someone who was centered and grounded and at peace with themselves could.

The track ended and Jesse dropped out of form, using the sleeve of her _gi_ to wipe the sweat off her face.

"Looking good."

She turned around and grinned. "I totally knew you were standing there."

Of course she did – the house was set to send an alert whenever the security was disengaged.

"Couldn't sleep?" Harry stayed at the threshold; his boots and the flooring he'd installed were incompatible.

"This apple didn't fall far from the tree. Have better things to do than snooze." She turned off the music. "You look like you've had a good night, though."

"I did."

"I can tell. You're missing that extra grumpy look you've been wearing the past few days."

Harry responded casually, "The ride helped clear my head."

She arched one eyebrow at him and folded her arms across her chest. "Ride?" That single word was dripping with skepticism. It didn't help that she looked and sounded way too much like Tessa at the moment for his comfort.

"Yes, ride. _Motorcycle ride_."

"And here I was thinking you went out for a booty call. You're wearing the leather pants."

"Jesse Chambers!" 

"Dad, come on. You disappeared around eleven, you come home at six, and you look way too relaxed to have spent the night at the lab. You had sex. Big deal."

Harry closed his eyes and prayed for patience. 

But Jesse blithely continued. "I hope you didn't go to a club and pick up some sweet thing too young to realize you share a face with a confessed murderer."

"Jesse, enough." Harry didn't bother to hide an edge of anger.

"Sorry – but I'm happy for you. You've been really stressed out the last week and that's not healthy."

He relented. "It's okay, sweetheart. I'm fine."

"You know, I wouldn't mind if you dated. Mom's been gone a long time, and it's not like you're running a vast scientific empire anymore. You should have a life of your own. Find a nice guy, settle down."

"Guy?" Harry had no idea why she'd make that assumption.

"Or girl – lady – woman. Whatever. You know what I mean. But why not a guy? You cut a pretty wide swath in Old Town for years, or so I've heard."

How the hell did his daughter know he'd frequented Central City's gay club district in the years after Tessa's death? Harry felt his blood pressure start to climb. Again. "Jesse."

"What? I'm not supposed to know these things?"

"No, actually, you're not. Some things – like your father's sex life – should be off-limits."

Jesse just chuckled. "I'm going to shower. How about making me breakfast?"

"You expect me to cook after this rather appetite-killing conversation?"

"Yup."

Jesse pushed past him, heading towards her suite. Harry just shook his head and smiled. That was his Jesse Quick, his joy, in all her glory.


	5. Chapter 5

**A Month Later**

Barry liked watching Jesse on the treadmill, if just for the pleasure of seeing another speedster at work. Especially a speedster who didn't leave a wake of lies and misery behind them.

"Four hundred thirty two miles an hour." Cisco called out Jesse's speed as she slowed to a relatively slow run, then came to a full halt.

"It sounds more impressive if you use klicks." Jesse countered. "I can't believe you are still using Imperial measurements. Even Mother England uses metric."

"Jesse, don't even start on that." Harry looked up from the report he was reading. "Just be grateful for the things you have."

"Like a Big Belly Burger?" Jesse made pleading eyes at everyone in the room. "Or three or four? I feel faint."

"Here – eat." Caitlin practically tossed the Big Belly Burger bag at Jesse and retreated, as if she was feeding a hungry lioness. She was smiling, not such a rarity these days.

Barry watched the by-play, relishing the closeness of this team. No secrets, no lies – well none except that he and Harry were together. Just the occasional moments of drama which were inevitable in any group with such mixed personalities. He tried not to compare them to the original "Team Flash", but such comparisons were inevitable.

Back then, the man who called himself Harrison Wells had clearly been their leader. They'd naturally looked to him for guidance and he controlled their every move like the master chess player that he'd been. This group only occasionally considered Harry their leader (and with Cisco, usually under duress), and he had no desire for the role full-time. On the rare occasions when he offered input, it was usually sound and the team didn't hesitate to act on it, but most of the time, Harry watched and kept his opinions to himself.

Harry wasn't so passive in the early morning hours, in the privacy of Barry's apartment, when he quietly raged at him for all the risks he took. The anger never lasted – not for more than a few minutes – and Barry was never troubled by it. It was Harry's coping mechanism. It was honest. 

"Barry?"

He hadn't realized someone – Jesse – was talking to him. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"I wondered if I should take another run. See if I can break five hundred miles an hour."

Barry flicked his gaze over to Harry, who shook his head very slightly. "No – I think we need to stick to the training schedule. You peaked at …" He looked at the readout, "four minutes and thirty-two seconds. Your speed stayed constant for fifteen minutes and you started dropping speed pretty consistently for the next ten minutes."

Caitlin added, "Your heart rate was steady at ninety-eight beats per minute, until the last five minutes, when you spiked to one-twenty-five, while your speed was dropping. Nothing dangerous, but it's pretty indicative that you're at your maximum output right now."

She pouted a little, complaining to him, "I don't understand why I'm not faster. I've looked at your stats – you were going almost eight hundred miles per hour right off the bat."

"I also spent nine months in a coma, Jesse. Nine months while my body did nothing except adapt to the changes."

"I feel like a turtle." She frowned and flopped into a chair.

Cisco spoke up, his tone all panicky nerves. "Oh, no – you are no turtle. No turtle at all." 

Barry looked away, but made the mistake of catching Harry's eye again. Harry turned dead-white and turned his focus on the monitor in front of him. Caitlin looked like she was about to choke.

But Jesse seemed oblivious to the tensions her words accidentally created. "So, who's coming over for movie night tonight?"

Cisco was the first to answer. "Count me in – as long as we're not watching the Star Wars prequels again." 

Jesse made a gagging noise. "Hell no – I can't believe how bad they are here. Seriously, your George Lucas must be nuts. To make the movies out of order like that. And oh my god, Hayden Christiansen? That guy couldn't act his way out of a paper bag." Jesse turned to him. "What would you like to watch, Barry?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. Why don't you pick tonight."

Barry shook his head, hopefully conveying regret. "I don't think I can make it. Sorry."

But Jesse pressed, "Why?"

"I have some things to take care of." That was a piss-poor excuse, but he'd never been good at those when put on the spot.

"You never come to movie night at the house. Why not?"

Barry looked to his friends, but while they didn't voice their own curiosity at his absence, they were asking the same question with their eyes.

Harry, thankfully, came to the rescue. "Tonight, he's helping me. We have to sort out a bunch of patent and licensing agreements."

"Seriously, dad? Instead of movie night?"

"Seriously, Jesse. This has to become an operational facility again. It has to start earning money. Barry is the only one who has access to the data I need to make that happen."

"And it can't wait until tomorrow?"

"No." Harry gave his daughter a quelling look.

Jesse sighed and started discussing various movie options with Caitlin and Cisco. Barry pulled out his phone and sent a quick text.

 _Thx Harry_.

A few minutes later, he got a reply.

_Sorry you can't join them. Maybe they could have movie night here?_

He waited a few minutes, casually walked over to Harry's station and scribbled on a sticky, _It's ok_.

Harry took the little piece of paper, folded it up and stuck it in his pocket.

Barry's phone buzzed again. This time for a video connection, and when he saw who the caller was, he headed into the hallway. 

"Hey there, Mrs. Queen!"

"You know, I never get tired of hearing people call me that." Felicity looked good, her smile brighter and broader than ever.

So Barry indulged her. "So, Mrs. Queen, what can I do for you?"

"Actually, it's more 'what Mrs. Queen has done for you'."

Barry's stomach did a little flip. "It's done?"

"Yes. All the data has been created for both Harry and Jesse. They can live their lives as if they'd been born on this Earth. Financial records, military records for Harry, school transcripts all the way back to kindergarten for both of them."

Barry asked, "Even the yearbooks?"

"Believe it or not, that was the trickiest bit. It's a good thing that Palmer Tech has a traditional printing subsidiary. You'd be surprised at how complicated it is to recreate a bunch of high school and college yearbooks."

"But you were up to the task, Mrs. Queen, weren't you?"

"Of course. Did you ever doubt me?"

"Nope, never."

"Do you want me to ship it out or will you just run over and pick them up?"

Barry was about to tell Felicity that he'd been there in a half-hour or so, but the sound of an outraged parental voice and a teary teenage one changed his plans. "If you can have them sent out, that'll be fine."

"I'll have one of Ray's new drones deliver them tomorrow."

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Queen." The shouting from the Cortex got louder.

Felicity chuckled. "Go, I can hear the fighting all the way to Star City."

Barry disconnected and went back to the Cortex. Jesse was red-faced, practically in tears, Harry looked like he was ready to punch someone, and Cisco looked equally moved to violence. 

"What's going on?"

Cisco, Jesse and Harry started talking at once, and from what Barry could make out, the argument was something about a suit.

"Slow down, slow down. One at a time." None of the three combatants listened to him, resuming their argument. Barry let out a piercing whistle. "You know what? I want to hear from the only adult in the room. Caitlin, what's going on?"

She grimaced. "Jesse asked Cisco to make a suit for her. Harry said no."

Cisco added a little bitterly, "Actually, before I even answered, dickhead here said he'd rip my right arm off and beat me to death with the wet end if I so much as took a single measurement."

"Harry?"

"He's not making a suit for Jesse."

"Did you threaten to dismember Cisco?"

"I might have." Harry gave him the stare of death. 

Barry wasn't intimidated and he turned back to his friend. "Cisco, did you offer or otherwise suggest that you'd make a suit for Jesse?"

"No. The subject has never come up."

Barry raised an eyebrow.

"No, it didn't." Cisco looked pretty fed up and Barry didn't blame him. Cisco's relationship with Harry on non-technical, non-Flash things was defined by mostly-amicable sniping that occasionally descending into something a little darker, a little meaner - on both sides. But this was the first time since Jesse had been rescued that Harry threatened Cisco with bodily harm.

"Harry, apologize." He didn't expect that Harry would, but it was worth a shot.

Cisco, though, got even more bent out of shape. "Wait, wait – if I _had_ offered to make a suit for Jesse, it would be okay for Harry to rip off a limb? Some friend you are."

"That's not what I meant." 

"Why can't I have a suit?" Jesse reinserted herself into the conversation. Barry wasn’t sure that he didn't appreciate the disruption.

Harry cut her off. "Because you are not going out on the streets of Central City and do what Barry's doing. You are not becoming a masked vigilante. And that's final."

"I'm not a child – "

"You are _my_ child, and I'm telling you that you are too smart and too important to waste your life running around saving people from their own stupidity."

Barry felt like he'd been punched in the gut. "I can't believe those words just came out of your mouth."

Harry snapped back, "You know what I mean, Allen." 

Caitlin tried to diffuse the situation. "Guys, guys – let's just step back and chill out. This arguing is very non-productive."

The thing was, Barry agreed with Harry about Jesse. She was too smart to spend her life in the shadows, but Harry's tone triggered a memory and he needed to get out of there before he said something he would regret. "Jesse, let's go talk."

She gave her father an angry look and following him down to Cisco's workroom.

"It pains me to say it – because I'm really pissed at what he said – but your dad's right, Jesse. You have your whole life in front of you, so many choices. Being a speedster is only a small part of your future."

"Really? What future? I'm a refugee here, remember? I have no life."

"That's not true, and you know it. You have everything you need to build a future and a life."

"A life based on a lie."

"I thought you'd grown beyond seeing the world in terms of absolutes."

Jesse sighed and seemed to collapse on herself. "I just want to stop feeling helpless. Pushed around like my opinions don't matter."

Barry tried to reach her the only way he knew how, through compassion. "When I was eleven, my mother was murdered."

"Eobard Thawne." Jesse knew the basics of the story. "The guy from the future who stole my dad's doppelganger's DNA and built this place. To create the Flash so he could go back to the future. He was an evil, psychopathic murderer."

"I saw him - the man in the lightning - but no one believed me." That was something he hadn't told her. "The court psychologists called it PTSD and said I was too traumatized to testify in my father's defense. No one would listen to me; no one would believe me, not even Joe or Iris. So, I get what you're feeling." Barry didn't know if he was doing or saying anything that would make Jesse feel better. "You were held prisoner for almost a year, a monster did everything possible to break you down and destroy your sense of self. Then you're dragged here, to a world that isn't your own, a place that's only similar to home on the surface. And then you find out that you've got meta-human powers."

Jesse nodded, but before she could say anything, Barry added, "But there's a difference between our experiences. You have your dad, and he believes in _all_ of your extraordinary gifts. He believes in you and even though he's being an ass about it, he's right. You're too smart to spend your life hiding behind a mask and a cowl. You'll set the world on fire in other, better ways."

"I can still do that and be a hero. You do."

"What I do as a CSI is nothing compared with your potential, Jesse." 

"Don't sell yourself short, Barry."

He gave her a wry smile, "Thanks, kiddo."

"I'm not a kid, I'm eighteen."

Barry wasn't going to get into _that_ argument. "How about this, no more talking about suits and superheroes until you're twenty-one and you have your PhD, okay?"

She seemed to accept the idea. "If I study material science, I can develop new fabrics for my own suit. Better than yours. I won't even need Cisco."

"That's a possibility." Barry hoped he wasn't overplaying the encouraging friend. 

"I'm not some silly girl, you know."

"I know that. You couldn't do what you do; you couldn't have survived what you did if you were."

She smiled at him, her face glowing with happiness. He was so pleased that Jesse had backed away from her plan to join him on the streets of Central City that he didn't realize that the conversation had – in her head – changed direction. He didn't realize how close she was until she kissed him – on the mouth.

Without thinking, he sped to the other side of the room.

"Barry?" Of course, Jesse looked devastated. "What's the matter?"

"This isn't a good idea." He held out a hand, as if to ward her off.

"Why not?"

"Jesse …" God, how the hell did he forget, even for a moment, that Jesse had a crush on him?

"Don't you like me?"

"I do, but …"

Her face fell. "But I'm just a kid to you, right? Just a silly kid."

"No – we've already gone over that. You're not a kid. And you're definitely _not_ silly."

"But I'm too young, right?"

Barry thought about agreeing, that would be an easy out. But it wasn't really the truth, and Jesse deserved the truth. He just didn't plan on getting cornered into telling it. "It's not that."

"Then what?"

Barry took a deep breath. "I'm already seeing someone. And it's serious."


	6. Chapter 6

Shame was an unfamiliar emotion and apologies weren't easy for Harry, but he had to try. "Ramon – "

The other man refused to look at him.

"Cisco, please." 

That got a reaction. Cisco turned around.

Harry apologized like he was having a tooth pulled. "I'm sorry."

"For threatening me?"

"No – for jumping to conclusions." He shook his head. "Jesse – what she wants – that took me by surprise. I didn't see it coming. I overreacted."

Cisco didn't say anything.

"I'm her father, damn it."

"And as we well know, you seem to think that gives you a license to be an asshole to everyone else."

"Apparently." Harry tossed his glasses on the desk. "I'm sorry for threatening you, too. That wasn't right."

"Apology accepted."

"Thank you."

Cisco wasn't finished. "But you're still in the dog house. What you said about Barry and what he does, that's not going to be easy to forget. Or forgive. He risked everything to help you, to save you from your own stupidity. Or don't you remember Barry telling you to leave him behind when he couldn't get out of that cell? He was willing to die to keep you and Jesse safe. And when he got out and Zoom showed up, he was the first to offer to stay and let you extract his speed in exchange for Jesse's life."

"I know. I know." Harry rubbed his eyes, feeling slightly sick.

"And I seem to remember that when he realized Zoom had you, when the rest of us went through the portal, he went back to save your ungrateful ass." Cisco's voice never rose above an ordinary conversational volume, but he might as well have been shouting through a bull horn.

Harry looked at Cisco, at Caitlin; he owed everything to these two. And to the man who was trying to persuade his daughter that she didn't need to risk her life, that she didn't need to be a hero. "I'm sorry. I know it's just words, and I'm an ass."

Cisco corrected him. "No, you're a dick."

For the first time, Caitlin jumped in. "I think the exact expression you're looking for, Cisco, is 'you're _just_ a dick'." She actually snickered.

Cisco nodded. "Yeah, that's right. I wonder if it's too late to put 'Just a Dick' as your middle name on your new documents. 'Harry Just a Dick Chambers'. Has a certain ring to it."

"I like it." Caitlin went back to her console and the two of them started batting around all sorts of variations on that theme. 

Instead of getting annoyed, something unknotted inside him. These two were going to torture him for a while, but at least they'd forgiven him. Barry's forgiveness, however, might be a lot harder to earn.

It had been about ten minutes since Barry followed Jesse out of the Cortex. If he had to take a guess, they were in Cisco's workroom. It seemed to be the place for heart-to-heart talks and soul-shattering discoveries.

Harry stood and announced, "I'm going to find them."

Cisco and Caitlin looked up. Caitlin gave him a mildly sympathetic look, and Cisco said, "Good luck with that. You're gonna need it." 

As he'd suspected, they were in the workroom, and he waited just outside the doorway, not wanting to barge in and possibly wreck all the good that Barry was trying to accomplish. 

He listened and cringed. It seemed that his daughter decided that this was a good time to act on her crush. Jesse sounded so pathetic and lost when she asked Barry if he liked her. Barry was trying so hard not to hurt her as he demurred. 

Jesse, though, wouldn't let it go.

_"But I'm too young, right?"_

_"It's not that."_

_"Then what?"_

_"I'm already seeing someone, Jesse. And it's serious."_

_"You are? I ask Caitlin, and she said that you and your girlfriend broke up over a year ago, that she'd left Central City."_

_"Patty? No – Patty's not part of my life anymore."_

_"Caitlin said you weren't seeing anyone. That you were single and you didn't even seem interested in dating anymore. She said that you probably found it too hard, with everything going on. Was she lying?"_

_"She wasn't – she doesn't know. No one knows. It's complicated."_

_"I don't believe you. I think you're lying to me so I won't feel bad."_

_"No, I'm not. I swear."_

Harry could hear Jesse's tears, Barry's panic and desperate need not to hurt his lover's daughter, and he again regretted the decision to keep their relationship a secret.

_"Jesse – you have to believe me. I'm seeing someone that my friends and my family wouldn't approve of. It's just easier that no one knows."_

_"I've met your dad, and Joe and Iris. They love you and they wouldn't care who you were seeing."_

Barry didn't answer, but Jesse wouldn't let it go.

_"Is she married? He married?"_

_"No. It's not that. Please don't ask me to tell you anymore."_

The shame that he'd felt before, the shame that had eased a little when Cisco and Caitlin accepted his apology, returned a thousand-fold. Barry was taking the blame, shouldering the burden for something he'd asked for. 

Jesse continued to press and Barry kept trying to put her off, and the only two people he truly loved were in tears because of him. He had to fix this the only way he could. He moved to the doorway, but they didn't notice him.

"You're either here or at work or running around saving the city. When would you have time for your mystery lover? You're lying to me." 

Times like this is wasn't hard to remember that his daughter, a genius with unparalleled intellect, was still very much a teenage girl.

"I'm not." Barry sounded utterly defeated.

Harry finally intervened, he couldn't bear it anymore. He entered the workroom. "No, Jesse, Barry's not lying to you."

Jesse whirled around, leaving a tiny arc of silver lightning in her wake. "Dad?"

Barry looked up, shock in his eyes.

"Barry's not lying about seeing someone." He'd stuck his hands in his pockets, but they seemed – of their own accord – to come to rest behind his neck. Not surprising, since he was surrendering to the inevitable.

"How could you know that? If Caitlin and Cisco don't?"

"I know because the person he's seeing is me." 

Jesse didn't say a word. She looked from him to Barry in disbelief.

Barry nodded in confirmation.

Harry continued, "We've been together since before we rescued you. When we – when _I_ decided we were staying here – I told Barry we couldn't tell you. And the decision to keep this a secret has been all mine."

He wasn't sure what Jesse was going to do. Half the time she shocked him with her maturity, and then there were moments that had him tearing his hair out, desperate wishing he had a manual on how to cope with a traumatized teenage girl. Or even _just_ a teenage girl.

She still said nothing, but her hurt and anger were all too apparent.

Harry opened his mouth, but Barry stayed him with a gesture. "Jesse, your father loves you, you are his whole world. No one else matters to him but you. You know that he will move heaven and earth to protect you, that there is nothing more important than your well-being. If you can't forgive me, I'll understand, but don't let this come between you and your father."

Jesse finally spoke. "I hate secrets. I hate when people – when my _father_ – keeps secrets, thinking that he's protecting me." She looked at him with withering scorn, then turned back to Barry. "When I was seven, he told me that my mom was visiting friends for a week. The truth was, she was in the hospital having half her liver removed. And every time she had to go back, for chemo, she was going to visit 'friends'. Then she died and I didn't even know she was sick."

"You were seven…" Harry said helplessly.

"That's not the point, Dad. You want me to make mature decisions, but you don't give me the information I need to make the right ones. How can I trust you?" Her tone was pure steel. "You know what? I'm done with this conversation. And don't worry – I'm not going tell everyone your dirty secret."

"It's not dirty, Jesse. We weren't hiding because we're ashamed." Harry reached out and tried to take his daughter's hand. She slipped away.

"Are you so sure?" She turned back to Barry. "Are you?"

Barry didn't answer and he looked away from both of them. Harry couldn't help but feel that Jesse somehow managed to hit a bullseye. 

"I'm going to ask Cisco or Caitlin to take me home." 

Harry nodded, grateful that Jesse wasn't going to run off into the night. "Okay." He couldn't think of anything else to say, other than to beg her forgiveness, her understanding. But he kept his tongue and let her go. Chasing after her right now would only make things worse between them.

He sighed and looked at Barry. "That went … well."

"You think?" 

"No, of course it didn't." Frustrated, he glanced around, looking for something to throw at Barry. Except that Barry did nothing wrong. "Maybe I shouldn't have kept it a secret. I just didn't want her to be hurt."

"Didn't you tell me that you wouldn't protect her from the normal experiences that are part of growing up?"

"Don't quote my own rational, adult comments back to me when I want to pitch a fit." 

Barry leaned against the desk. He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. There was a blankness there and with his arms across his chest, he looked closed off, unreachable. Harry's frustration with Jesse morphed into something else. He asked, casually – if just to try and pretend that he hadn't screwed up big time. "Other than the obvious, what's wrong?"

Barry shook his head. "It's nothing."

Harry tried apologizing. "I'm sorry. I know I've been saying that a lot lately, and objectively speaking, I'm a pretty horrible person."

That earned him a small, bitter laugh. "The hair shirt and martyr routine doesn't work for you, Harry. You're many things, but not a saint. And honestly, if we're going to parse out what you said back there, you pretty much called yourself stupid."

Harry thought back to what he'd said, _"waste your life running around saving people from their own stupidity"_ , and chuckled. "Yeah, I guess I did. And you do a very good job of that – saving me from my own stupidity. What you said to Jesse …"

"It's okay. She's promised to hold off on the whole superhero thing. I don't know if she'll ever put it completely away, but she's smart and she knows that there are other alternatives. I think she needs to know that her voice matters, that she has some agency – and you respect taht. That she has a place in the bigger picture of things."

"That's not what I meant."

"Oh?"

"When you told her that no one else matters to me, you were wrong. I will not give you up for Jesse, and I don't think – when she gets over her mad – she'll want me to. You matter to me, Barry. You have to know that." Or maybe he didn't? How many times had he begged Barry to tell him that he loved him, how many times had he asked for reassurance, how many time had he not given Barry those words back? 

He started to, but Barry shook his head. "Don't, Harry – just, don't."

"Why not? I – "

"I don't want to hear it now. I can't."

"I don't understand."

Barry looked at him, as if he was trying to will his comprehension."

"Thawne?" _The ghost that was always between them._

"He's in my head right now. What you'd said back there – it reminded me of something he'd told me. Back at the very beginning. I just need some time to separate it. To put it away."

"Won't you tell me what it is, what he said?"

"No – chalk this up to one of those moments of emotional constipation."

Harry sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "This is all my fault."

"You're not responsible for the mess inside my head, Harry."

"I know, but …"

"But, nothing. Let me deal with this the only way I know how."

"Okay – but…" Harry couldn't leave it alone.

"You can't fix this." Barry gave him a sad smile and added, "not even with a kiss."

Harry reluctantly backed off. "What are you going to do?"

Barry shrugged, "What I always do. Run."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The thing about running was that he could never really escape his memories. Too many times, it was easier to remember what he wanted to forget when he was speeding along at a thousand miles an hour.

He knew that Harry hadn't intended to hurt him. He was trying to make a point to his daughter, and in typical Harry-fashion, he picked the most direct way to express the truth. He hadn't even been particularly insulted, but the words, the tone, opened up wounds that he'd thought long healed.

But they weren't and maybe they never would.

He'd been stabbed once – a slim blade between the ribs. The wound should have been fatal, would have been fatal if he hadn't been a speedster. It was a clean cut and healed within a day, but the sense memory of the blade sinking deep, the sound as it punctured flesh, scraped along bone, still lingered. There was no scar, but there were times when he could still feel the original wound.

And just as he could still feel that stab wound, he could still hear the man he'd thought to be Harrison Wells contemptuously telling him that he wasn't a hero, he was just a young man struck by lightning. Of course, that had been part of his plan – knock him down and build him up. Forge the bonds that would tie them together forever.

It had worked brilliantly. And nearly two years after his unmasking, Eobard Thawne's knife was still cutting him to pieces.

Most of the time, he could ignore the cuts, he could forget the love he'd once felt. Most of the time, he didn't even feel the shame that had once consumed him. Harry had helped with that. But there were still moments when it all came back – the confusion, the love, the hate, the guilt, the horror of how eagerly he'd participated in his own degradation.

And all he could do was run.

_Now run, Barry, run._

He ran and remembered the look on the Harry's face as he apologized. There was shame and self-loathing and something else – fear. He'd seen that look before, when Harry had been waiting for him at his apartment, when he'd confronted him about his distance, his withdrawal.

Harry had been afraid he was losing him. And yet he had the courage to admit it, instead of getting all stoic and closed off. Instead of running away.

_Run, Barry, run._

He almost turned around and went back to the lab, but he couldn't. Not with Eobard still in his head.


	7. Chapter 7

Harry felt like he was living in a demilitarized zone. Or, more accurately, that he was a demilitarized zone.

Jesse wasn't talking to him. At the house, she pointedly left any room he entered. He could press the issue – but like the situation with Barry, he was afraid that he'd only make things worse.

At the lab, when she wasn't working on her speed, she ignored him, spending time researching degree programs. A package from Felicity Queen arrived by drone the day after everything exploded, containing everything he and Jesse needed to live permanently here. Things like transcripts and school reports, a complete medical history and doctors' files – the records that filled in the gaps between the birth certificate, the social security number and the passport that Felicity had provided within a month of their arrival.

If she wanted – and if he allowed – his Jesse Quick could go anywhere and do anything. Maybe if he hadn't been so overprotective and insisted that she live at home and go to a local university, she might never have become Zoom's prey. But fifteen had been too young to let her spread her wings and fly.

Now, though, now she was looking at schools across the country and even across the ocean. To get as far away from him as possible.

It didn't help matters that Jesse was avoiding Barry, too. She would follow his directions regarding training runs and building her speed, but would only interact with Cisco and Caitlin. Harry took no pleasure at her daughter's coldness to Barry and if he was going to force the issue between them, it would be over that.

Except that Barry hadn't even been trying to get back in Jesse's good graces, and had steadily withdrawn from everyone. It wasn't that he was spending less time at the lab, rather, his interactions with people were minimal. After the first few days, Cisco and Caitlin stopped trying to pull him into their circle and Harry wondered if Barry had said anything to them, because Jesse had become the warm, bright center of their attention.

This almost limbo-like state continued for more than a week. Barry was present in body, absent in every other way that mattered. And just as Barry seemed to be in full retreat, the void between them growing ever wider. If was anyone else was doing this, he'd think he was being punished, but Barry wasn't like that. He was incapable of such behavior and more likely to assign blame to himself for someone else's sins.

Ten days and Harry felt like he was ready to shatter. Jesse's long captivity and the fight against Zoom had damaged his endurance and he felt like he was close to the breaking point. If Barry needed to end things, he needed to know and figure out how to live out the rest of his life.

He tossed his glasses on the desk and scrubbed his face. The Cortex was empty – not quite. Cisco was tinkering with something and thankfully keeping to himself. Caitlin and Iris had taken Jesse for dinner and a movie. Barry was … not here.

He picked up his coffee cup, took a sip and grimaced. The coffee was ice cold and hours old.

"Harry?"

"Yeah, Ramon."

"You okay?"

Harry looked at his occasional bête noir and sighed. He could eviscerate the man with a few well-chosen words, but he didn't have the heart. Maybe it was Barry's influence, or possibly Jesse's, but he knew when he was done, he'd feel slightly ashamed at responding so such obvious concern with flippant cruelty.

"I'm all right." That was the most he was willing so say.

Cisco actually tried to comfort him. "Jesse will come around. She's stubborn – like someone else in this room."

Harry smiled at the memory that Cisco's words inadvertently brought up. "Her mother used to say the same thing. If there was one person on the planet who could out-stubborn me, it was my daughter. even when she was five years old."

"I won't make her a suit, I promise."

Harry blinked at the non sequitur, but then remembered that that was the flash-point that set off the current disaster in his life. "I know."

Cisco shifted his concern to the other speedster in their lives. "Do you know what's going on with Barry? He's been really withdrawn the past week or so."

Not willing to lie, Harry just shook his head. "He say anything to you?"

"Just that he has to work through some things. It's strange – he's not a moody guy, except for … " Cisco took a deep breath, "except for anything to do with the fake Wells. That's the only thing that ever throws him. I was wondering if you knew what triggered it this time. It's not even close to the anniversary of his mom's murder."

Harry knew that. Last March, he and Jesse, the Wests, Cisco and Caitlin, had a quiet dinner with Barry and his father after they'd returned from the cemetery. It had been a surprisingly comfortable evening, one not focused on a tragic death, but on the ones still living. Later that night, Barry sent him a text, asking to join him at the lab. He'd been frantic for him, for his hands and his mouth and his body.

"Harry, what do you think?" Lost in the memory, he hadn't realized Cisco was talking to him.

He faked an answer. "Don't know."

Cisco mused, "Wonder if he's said anything to Joe?"

Harry sighed and picked up his glasses and put them on, only to take them off again, growling in disgust. They were scratched and filthy, too much of a metaphor of his life of late.

"He really should talk to you. You're very close."

Harry wasn't sure he heard that right. After all, he and Barry had taken pains not to show how close they were. "Ramon?"

Cisco shrugged, not realizing he'd ventured into dangerous waters. "The two of you are close. Other than Jesse, he's the only person you let inside that shell of yours. Just saying, maybe you should return the favor. I think, of everyone, you have the best perspective on things."

"Why would you say that?"

"You're the outsider. You can be an objective sounding board or something like that."

Harry blinked. "That's surprisingly … insightful."

"Well, I'm more than just another pretty face." Cisco grinned, then gave him the world's worst duck-face.

Harry smiled for the first time in what felt like years. "Yeah, Ramon. That you are."

"I think I'm going to head out. I'll change the comms over to remote unless you're going to stay."

He checked the time, it was after seven. Not that late, but he needed to clear his head. "I think I'm going to head out, too."

"'Kay – see you Monday, unless something comes up."

Unless there were metas causing havoc, the crew had taken to keeping to a normal workweek schedule – it was healthier for everyone. "Night, Ramon."

As he walked to the garage, Harry checked the locator app on his watch. Jesse was right where she was supposed to be, at the Vogue Theatre in downtown Central City. She'd be there for another two hours, at least. Despite the cold war between them, he wanted to be home for her until she went to bed.

He'd heard Barry mention that he was having dinner with Joe tonight. It seemed that Joe's son, Wally, was out of town and the two men had plans for nothing more exciting than male bonding over pizza and beer. Harry decided he'd crash the party.

He'd been to the West residence quite a few times since settling here. About an hour after they'd arrived and still in shock at what Zoom had done to Garrick, Joe had offered him a place for Jesse. Considering that he'd been bunking on a mattress in an empty basement storage room and couldn't bear the thought of putting his daughter through any more traumas, he'd jumped at the offer.

Even after he had a real home to give Jesse, they'd been frequent dinner guests and his relationship with Joe had gone from mutual loathing to cool detente to something that he might even consider friendship. Although he was still pretty sure the man would try to beat him to a pulp if he knew about him and Barry.

He rang the doorbell and thought about all the ways this evening could go wrong. But he needed to see Barry and maybe, with Joe's help, get him to open up.

Joe opened the door. "Harry? What's wrong?" He gestured for him to come in. The house was quiet, the last of the evening light vying with the television to illuminate the living space.

"Nothing – isn't Barry here? I thought he'd said something about dinner with you."

"And since Iris and Caitlin are out with Jesse, you thought you'd crash the party?" Joe's smile was exceptionally kind.

Harry shrugged. "Yeah – but I see that I must have misunderstood. I'll get out of your hair."

"No misunderstanding. Barry and I were supposed to have dinner, even ordered the pizzas – plural, mind you – but he ditched me for an emergency in Star City."

"What?" Harry couldn't stop the surge of panic. "He took off and didn't tell the team? How could he be so irresponsible? How could you let him?" Every time that Barry got involved with the Arrow, he came back hurt.

Joe held out his hands. "Slow down, just … slow down. This is nothing to do with that crazy bunch over there. Oliver called in a panic. He needed Barry's help with a gift for Felicity. Something that only Barry could help with, apparently." The doorbell rang. "And that would be the pizza."

Harry waited while Joe collected the food and tipped the delivery guy.

"You're going to stay and help me with these, right?" Joe said as he carried the boxes into the dining room.

"As long as neither of them are salad pizzas."

"You've got to be kidding, right? There's such a thing as a salad pizza?"

"Yes, sadly enough, there is. Jesse and Caitlin have them delivered on a regular basis. I can't think of anything more terrible." Well, he could – but the moment called for hyperbole.

"Neither can I." Joe set the boxes down on the dining table. "One meat-lover's with extra cheese and one plain, for those of us who have to watch our cholesterol."

Harry's stomach rumbled. "Those smell way too good."

"Man cannot live on Big Belly Burger alone."

He laughed, "Speak for yourself, Detective West."

Joe went to fetch plates from the kitchen, and called out, "Beer?"

"Please."

They didn't talk much, concentrating on the food before it got cold. He finished half of a third slice and a second bottle of beer before giving up. "That was good, thanks."

"My pleasure."

He leaned back in the chair, surprisingly content.

At least until Joe broke the moment. "Frankly, I think Barry was looking for an excuse to ditch me tonight."

"Why?"

"He knows I've been worried about him. He's been way too quiet the past few days. You've noticed?"

"I have." Harry didn't want to give away anything, but Joe kept pressing for information.

"Do you know what's going on inside that boy's head?"

He stifled the urge to tell Joe that his foster son was almost twenty-eight and not a boy. "I'm not sure."

"What do you think is going on?"

The question was mildly put, but Harry couldn't escape the feeling he was being rather deftly interrogated. There was no point in lying. "Barry got caught in the crossfire when my daughter and I had a bit of a meltdown a few days ago."

"Yeah, Barry did mention that Jesse threw a fit when you nixed her plans for becoming a masked vigilante."

"Yes. And I wasn't particularly nice about it."

"Color me surprised, you're not exactly a nice guy."

Harry chuckled. "Very true." Then he sobered. "And Barry was collateral damage in that scene." He wondered if Joe was going to get his gun.

Instead, Joe just looked at him over his beer bottle. "That's not a new dynamic between the three of you."

"Three?"

"Barry, your daughter – or more to the point, your daughter's safety – and you."

Harry nodded. "Very true."

"So you were an ass and Barry's still angry."

Harry didn't say anything. This conversation as already too uncomfortable. He forced himself to grip the beer bottle with both hands.

"Or is it something more?"

Joe was going to keep pressing. Maybe he could use that. "Barry mentioned that what I said reminded him of something that Thawne had told him. Back at the very beginning." Harry swallowed against the sour taste of fear. "Do you know what he's talking about?"

"I might, if I knew what you said."

Harry put down the beer bottle and surrendered to the inevitable. "I told Jesse she was too important to waste her life running around saving people from their own stupidity."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, ouch."

"And Barry didn't deck you?"

"That, Joe, is your response."

"Excuse me, but you've thrown a few punches, too."

Harry conceded, "True, but Barry does much better with words than with fists. He very neatly pointed out that I had called myself stupid."

"That you did." Joe got up and went to retrieve something. A bottle of scotch and two glasses.

"I think I could use some of that."

Joe poured him a double and sat down again. "And Barry said that this reminded him of something the fake Wells said to him?"

Harry nodded. "I was hoping you knew what that was."

"No, I don't. I never fully trusted him, but it was hard not to follow his advice about Barry, back in the beginning. He was dialed in and knew just what buttons to push. He once had the gall to come to the station and lecture me about making Barry doubt himself, about putting my own fears on Barry's shoulders and causing him to fail."

Harry knocked back the fairly decent scotch – it burned going down and mixed unpleasantly with his rage at the imposter. He hoped like hell that Joe didn't know the other side of Barry's relationship with Eobard Thawne. "He was quite the bastard. But that doesn't help."

"Have you asked him what Thawne had said?"

"He wouldn't tell me when I first asked, and now he's been … avoiding me." Harry sighed. "Like my daughter. Can't fix either problem, and it really kind of sucks." He looked at the empty glass and wondered if he was getting drunk. Best keep his mouth shut.

"Daughters … I remember when Iris was eighteen."

"She difficult at that age?"

"Not difficult. Just headstrong. I told her not to apply to the police academy. But she went behind my back and did it anyway."

"Shit."

"To put it mildly. I had her application destroyed without even telling her. She kept waiting to hear and kept getting more dejected every day, until I finally broke down and told her."

Harry chuckled. "How long before she talked to you again?"

"Ten weeks. Ten very long weeks. Barry wasn't even home at the time. He was in college, living in the dorms, so I had no one to run interference or talk sense in to Iris."

"Do you regret what you did?"

"Hell, no!" Joe refilled both their glasses. "But I feel for you."

"If Iris had been a son, would you have done the same thing?"

Joe didn't answer right away. "That's an interesting question. Maybe? I want my children to have something more than what I have. Not that there's anything wrong with being a cop, and it often runs in the family, but still."

Harry picked up that thought. "Even if Jesse was a boy, I still wouldn't want him to do what Barry does. It's hard enough …" Harry stopped himself before revealing too much.

"Hard enough watching someone you love throw themselves into danger day in and day out."

Harry stared at Joe, who stared back. Neither man blinked.

Joe finally spoke. "I'm not blind, Harry. My foster son has always forged his own path and I've rarely been able to steer him in a different direction. If I thought what was going on between you two was one-sided, or you were taking advantage, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But you care for him just as much as he cares for you. Maybe more."

Mouth dry as the desert, Harry managed to croak out, "I love him, Joe."

"I get that. But I take it that your daughter doesn't about the two of you."

"Actually, she does. Now."

Joe shook his head. "I'm afraid to ask how she found out."

Harry told him, with carefully measured words.

"No wonder she's pissed at you."

"I think her anger is more about me keeping the relationship a secret than discovering she made a pass at her father's boyfriend." Harry sighed. "She'll get over the embarrassment."

"The things we keep secret, the lies we tell to protect our children, they always come back to haunt us." Joe seemed far too understanding. "I'm just grateful my own daughter was a little older when my secrets were spilled."

"Oh? What secrets?" Harry didn't know what Joe was talking about.

"When Iris was five, her mother – a drug addict – ran off. I told her that her mother had died and I pretended that she was. It was easier. I didn't know that Francine was pregnant when she ran away. Wally and Iris are full siblings."

"Ah. That's a pretty big secret, and pretty hard to explain away."

"Iris was surprising understanding – but I'm not sure I really deserved it. What's the expression? 'Oh, what a tangled web we weave'"

Harry laughed in agreement and took his time with the second glass of scotch, letting the mellow buzz ease into his bones. "I like it here. I didn't think I would, but I like this world better."

"Really? From what Barry's told me – your Earth's a lot more technologically advanced."

"In some ways. But those advancements are at the expense of people who can't really afford them. There's an underlying cruelty on my former world that's absent here."

"Considering the cruelty on _this_ world, that's saying a lot."

It was kind of nice talking with another adult. Another parent. He'd never been a man who had friends – not in college, not in the Army, nor even when he'd been married. Tessa was his whole world, then Tessa and Jesse. After Tessa died, he'd muddled through alone, the only way he knew how. But he couldn't help but hope that someday, he might even have evenings like this with the man he loved.

If that man ever talked to him again.

Harry sighed. The scotch was making him maudlin. "I should get going. He looked at his watch; there was a message from Jesse. She was spending the night at Caitlin's, and he wasn't to worry. At least she was still considerate, even in her anger.

"You okay to ride?"

Harry grimaced and considered his host. "Probably not."

"Then you need my patented sober-up remedy before you go anywhere."

"Those things don't work." Harry was envisioning something with a raw egg and lots of hot sauce. Or excessively strong coffee.

"Ah, but you don't know what I'm offering you." Joe was smiling.

"Okay, what _are_ you offering me?"

"A bottle of water and my couch for a few hours."

Harry looked at Joe with new appreciation. "You're right, that will work.

They talked about inconsequentialities for a little while longer. Joe fetched the promised bottle of water from the kitchen, an afghan from a closet, and introduced him to the couch.

"I'll probably leave in a few hours. I don't sleep much."

Joe gave him a searching look. "Okay, then I won't set the alarm. Have a good night – as much of it as you can."

"Thanks." Harry shucked his boots – the lace-ups he'd been wearing since the first time he'd crossed over – and grimaced at the slight stink. He wrapped the afghan around him, set a mental alarm to wake in a few hours, and fell into a light doze.

When Harry woke, the glow from the full moon was streaming through a window, as piercing as a spotlight. At some point, Joe had come back down and left a fresh bottle of water for him.

And a brief note.

 

_Talk to Barry. He's very good a shutting people out when he's afraid to get hurt. Don't let him._


	8. Chapter 8

Barry had planned to spend the evening with Joe, enjoying pizza and dodging questions about his emotional state. But Oliver's slightly panicked request for assistance with a gift for Felicity was a welcome excuse to cancel. His foster-father could be oppressive with his concern and Barry didn't want to have to think about every word coming out of his mouth. He'd felt slightly guilty about cutting out after Oliver called, especially since the pizzas had already been ordered. But Joe just waved him off and told him to do what he needed to do.

At speed, Star City was a quick half-hour minute run, and Oliver was waiting for him – with a sack of Big Belly Burgers – in his team's newest HQ. Thea and Laurel were sparring, but the Diggles were nowhere in sight – probably at home with their child.

"Okay – so what's the emergency and why am I your only hope?"

Oliver actually laughed at the Star Wars reference. "Need your very special speedster skills. Ray designed this – " Oliver held out a clear plastic case that only looked empty. "I'm hoping you can use your power to phase it into this – " He put a black leather jewelry case on the workbench and flipped it open. It contained a simple necklace with diamond the size of his thumbnail. "Once I put it on Felicity, it won't come off."

Barry picked up the plastic case and looked at it. "Why not just put this under her skin?"

"Because that would be creepy."

"In other words, you're planning on tracking her without telling her."

Oliver sighed. "It's just a precaution. And Ray's not too sure that embedding under the skin is such a good idea, since it's so small, it could simply grow right out as her epithelial cells regenerate."

Barry nodded, but cautioned his friend, "You know I've never done this before. I could shatter the stone."

"I'm sure you won't."

"You have a lot of faith in me."

"That I do."

The tracking device was smaller than he could see unaided, but that wasn't going to be a problem. He'd vibrate the diamond just enough so that it could absorb the tracking circuit. Or at least, that was the plan.

And to Barry's surprise, it worked.

He handed the gem back to Oliver and was about to head home, when his friend asked the same question almost everyone else had been asking him. "You okay?"

Barry thought about brushing him off, but realized that of everyone he knew, maybe Oliver was the only one who could give him some perspective.

"Is there someplace we could talk?" He glanced over at the Laurel and Thea, who seemed more interested in their interaction than in trying to beat each other up.

"Come with me."

Oliver took him up to the roof. "So, what's going on?"

Barry asked with terrible bluntness, "How do you forget what happened to you on the island? How do you not keep relieving it?"

Oliver answered equally bluntly, "I don't. I can never really forget about Lian Yu and there are times when I feel like everything I do here is something I've already lived through there."

"So, there's really no hope in putting the past behind you."

"We are the sum of our experiences, Barry. We can't go through our lives as blank slates. But if you let the past dominate your present, you won't have much of a future."

Barry shook his head. "That sounds suspiciously like something found inside a fortune cookie. And strangely profound."

"It's also the truth. What's going on? Is it Thawne?"

Barry nodded. While Oliver knew that he'd admired – even worshipped – the man he'd known as Dr. Harrison Wells, he didn't know that the relationship had become intimate. Nor did Oliver know about the nature of his relationship with Harry. "I find myself haunted lately. Was hoping you had some advice on how to get rid of the ghosts."

"Ghosts, I know too many of them. Talking about them helps. With someone who understands, someone who won't judge. What about Iris? I thought you shared everything with her."

"Taking about Eobard Thawne with her is difficult. He cost her too much."

Oliver understood. "And that would rule out your dad and your foster father, too. What about the other Wells? Or is that just too strange? Honestly, they seem nothing alike – except for the face."

Barry laughed at the unintended irony. "Yeah, that would be too strange." He stared out over the city. "I'll work my way through this, but thanks for the advice."

"Sorry I couldn't be more help."

"You helped plenty. I should get going."

Oliver clapped him on the shoulder. "Take care of yourself, Barry."

"I'll try. And when you give that present to your bride, tell her what's in it. You know as well as I do, how much damage secrets can do."

"I'll consider it."

Barry raced off, letting Oliver and Felicity's problems recede as he approached home.

It was close to one when he dropped out of the Speed Force about a block from his apartment. The full moon was almost blindingly bright and it was hard to miss the familiar black Harley parked in front of his building. 

His heart raced at the thought of Harry waiting for him outside his apartment. The last time he'd shown up, it had seemed like a turning point in their relationship – no more stolen nights on a mattress in a basement storage room at the lab. Practically every night for almost a month, Harry showed up at his apartment a little after midnight and stayed until just before dawn. 

Most nights, they made love, but sometimes they just talked. About nothing particularly deep or soul-searching – plans for S.T.A.R. Labs, the differences between their respective Earths, whatever meta had appeared on the horizon. At some point, if he'd been in a fight, Harry would get angry at him for the risks he'd taken that day, examine whatever injuries he'd received, tried to get him to promise not to take so many chances the next time, then kiss him desperately.

But since the incident with Jesse, Harry had kept his distance and Barry knew that this was mostly his fault. He was the one who ran, who kept running – even when they were in the same room. He was the one who couldn't banish his ghosts.

Or stop fearing that the next time they talked; Harry would tell him that it was over. That Jesse had to come first.

So he dragged his feet as much as he could, fearing what was waiting for him. And he found him, waiting by his apartment door. No leather this time, just the customary black shirt and jeans, and looking good enough to eat.

"Good to see that you're in one piece, Allen. You usually don't come back from meeting with the Arrow without some near-fatal injury."

"How did you know where I went tonight?"

"I stopped by Joe's. He told me he got ditched in favor of Oliver Queen and an emergency involving a gift for his wife. I figured you'd probably need some first aid when you got back." 

To Barry's surprise, Harry was actually smiling and he couldn't help but smile back. "No first aid required – just needed to phase a piece of Palmer tech into an obscenely large diamond that Oliver is giving to Felicity for some reason." Barry opened his apartment and let Harry go in. "Why did you to Joe's?"

Harry took off his jacket, sighed, and stuck his hands in his pockets. "I thought you'd be there and I'd hoped I could get you to talk to me. You don't seem to be doing a good job of getting things sorted out and it hurts like hell to watch you suffer. You need to tell me what's going on, you need to let me help."

Barry shook his head. "I told you, I'd sort it out."

"It's been over a week and all you've done is avoid me. Avoid everyone. You're too good at making yourself disappear, Barry. Everyone's worried about you. Especially me. Please – talk to me."

Barry shrugged; he didn't want to do this.

Harry wouldn't let it go. "I told you that I'm not giving you up for Jesse. When we got here, when she was still recovering from her ordeal with Zoom, the secrecy was important. I didn't want her to feel like she was sharing me. But I should have told her months ago. She knows I've been going out at night, she's even teased me about hooking up."

Barry felt some of the tension unwind in him, but he still couldn't quite let himself relax. "I don't want Jesse to be hurt."

"I know, Barry – believe me. I listened to you try to take the blame for this mess. You're too good for your own good."

"No. Just too scared I'll lose you."

"Not happening." Harry cupped his cheek. "But that's not the only thing going on inside your head. Talk to me."

Barry stepped back, trying to shut this down even as he heard Oliver's advice echoing in his brain. "Harry, I don't – I don't want him in the room with us." He was afraid to even say the bastard's name right now, as if the syllables could summon him from the future.

"But he's always going to be. And it has nothing to do with this." Harry gestured at his own face. "What he did to you, what you felt for him is always going to be part of you."

Barry sat down and buried his face in his hands. "That's what I'm afraid of."

"You've told me too many times to count that you know I'm not him, but now I have to wonder."

"You're not, Harry. You are nothing like him. Not in any way that matters."

"I'm not asking for reassurance, Barry. Not this time. But if you need that from me, if you want me to pretend…"

Barry stepped back, shocked and disgusted. "No! No – oh god, no! I want him out of my head, out of my life!" 

"You loved him."

"No." He was vehement in his denial. "What I loved were the parts of him I was conditioned to love. A carefully manufactured construct. Have I ever told you about our first 'date'?" He made air quotes around the last word. "He took me to a restaurant – a classy place that was way out of my league – taught me about fine wine and fine scotch. Got me drunk on endorphins. Then he pretended he was drunk and got a little silly and I drove him home. He said we were friends and touched my hand. It was all a fucking lie, but I fell for it."

He clamped his mouth shut before the rest of it came out. 

"Barry – " Harry hovered, looking helpless.

"I don't want you to know the details. It's bad enough that you know that it happened, but you don't need that in your head, too."

"It's already in my head."

Barry reared back as if he'd been slapped. "What?"

Harry sat down and gave him a terrible look. "That night, after I'd sniped at you about smelling or tasting like the impostor, and you said that I probably didn't, when I finally figured it out, I went looking."

"For what?"

"For proof, confirmation – I don't know. There was a hidden partition on one of the servers – it was encoded with my – _his_ – thumbprint and retinal scan, which I'd used to get into the system in the first place. I didn't realize it was even there until the system asked me if I wanted to access it."

"What did you find?" Barry felt breathless, nauseous.

"He had cameras in his office."

Barry didn't know why he was surprised at this news. Thawne had put cameras everywhere. "So you saw? Everything?"

"Not everything. Just a few … encounters. I destroyed the rest without looking at them."

Barry felt himself shaking, vibrating. He knew if he touched anything, he'd phase right through it. He could kill Harry with a single touch. He could push his hand right into his lover's heart and end his life.

Harry seemed to read his thoughts as he picked up his hand and placed it over his chest, over his heart. "Do what you need to do."

He felt Harry's heart beating, racing, too fast. Much like his own. "I didn't want you to know," Barry whispered and pulled his hand away. If he could have opened a breach and stepped into another universe to escape, he would have. "I didn't want you to know."

But Harry wouldn't let him go. He wrapped his arms around him, and instead of whispering words of comfort, he made a terrible vow. "I'll kill him for you. I _will_ , I promise. And you know that I keep my promises."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Harry managed to get Barry out of most of his clothes and under the covers. He didn't want to leave, but he didn't want to get into bed with Barry in such a state. He was going to pull over a chair and keep watch – he'd slept in a lot more uncomfortable places.

"No, come to bed, with me. Please."

"Barry – "

"Harry, please. I don't want to be alone."

He couldn't resist the neediness in Barry's plea. "Okay." He stripped to his shorts and climbed under the covers, but he was unsure of what to do. Barry pulled him into his arms. They laid together, just holding each other. As the minutes – then hours – passed, Harry could feel the terrible tension slip away.

Barry broke the silence with an apology. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Harry pressed a kiss against the other man's temple "For breaking down?"

"Yeah, and for letting him get so deep inside my head again."

"It's okay, Barry."

"I love you, Harry. I didn't mean to pull away, to make you doubt that I love you."

"Shh, you don't have to apologize."

Barry stirred, easing out of his embrace and sitting up. "I need to say this, just this once. You know the worst of it if you've seen what we did."

Harry's curiosity was piqued and he was disgusted with himself. All he'd seen was a couple of enthusiastic blow jobs – what more could they have done? "You don't have to tell me."

"I do. I need to say this."

Harry nodded and let Barry speak.

"For six months, I let my mother's murderer fuck me. For six months, I made love to my mother's murderer. Even after I knew that he'd killed her, that he was the Reverse-Flash, I kept crawling to him, into his bed, into his arms, all over his body. It was like a sickness. Even when I hated him, I kept going back; I kept letting him use me. I kept enjoying it. I told myself that it was to keep him from finding out that I knew. But it wasn't."

Harry finally understood what Barry needed. Absolution. "You kept going back because you loved him. Because you didn't want it to be true, despite the proof."

"I only thought I loved him."

"No, Barry – you _loved_ him. If you lie to yourself about that, it'll only get worse."

"The truth will set you free? Be true unto yourself?" 

"Something like that." Harry sighed and held onto Barry, who seemed to have found some measure of peace. He hated to do this, but he needed to know. "Can I ask one question?"

"Just one?" 

"Yes, just one." Harry almost changed his mind, and then just asked, "What did I say that set you on the downward spiral? What did I say that put Thawne back in your head?"

"When you were yelling at Jesse – when you told her she was too important to waste her life – "

" 'Running around saving people from their own stupidity' – Did Thawne say something like that to you?"

Barry nodded. "A few days after I woke up from the coma and discovered that there were other metas – metas who were killing people - "

"And you wanted to chase after them and stop them." Harry could practically hear the conversation.

Barry nodded. "Thawne told me that I was far too valuable to risk because I wanted to go out and play hero. Of course he wasn't talking about my brains, my intellectual promise, but my DNA. He said I was just a young man who happened to be struck by lightning. Of course, it was all a carefully calculated speech – the oldest trick in the book. Knock me down and then build me up."

Harry felt like utter crap. "I'm so sorry." 

"You didn't know. You couldn't know. And honestly – it was such a small thing. Such a brief moment. I don't know why it still bothers me."

"Because it cuts deep into who you are."

"I'm a mess, Harry." Barry slid down until his head was resting on his lap. "I love you, but I'm such a mess."

"And you think I'm not?" He carded his fingers through Barry's hair, soothing himself as much as his lover. "I love you and I'm terrified that you'll walk away one day."

"I won't, you know that. I've promised you that. And like you, I keep my promises."

Harry continued, he needed to get this out. "You're half my age, you're had one other serious relationship with a man. Before me, you were head over heels for Joe's partner – you even wanted to tell her you were the Flash …"

"Okay, first off – forget about the age thing. You know what my future is."

"Yeah, I do – but still…"

"Still, nothing. Don't ever bring the age difference crap up again."

He had to smile at Barry's intensity. "Okay – if you say so."

"Secondly, is this some bisexual angst?" Barry looked up at him. "Because I could have the same worries about you – you were married, and unless I'm reading things wrong, it was a very good marriage."

"It was, and Tessa always knew I was flexible – and loyal. But I've also been widowed for ten years and I wasn't a monk. Far from it."

"And I wasn't a virgin before I slept with Thawne."

"But you were the closest thing to it."

"You're wrong. Stop making assumptions." Barry sat up again and rubbed the back of his neck. "And this was not a conversation I expected to have again, but after everything that's gone on tonight, I might as well tell you, because I'm not ashamed of what I did." He seemed a little sheepish, but he was smiling.

"Barry?" He had no clue where this was going.

"I worked in a go-go club in Old Town when I was in college. I paid for my text books and lab fees with money I made stripping and as a lap dancer. I even did outcall for two years to help with the rent and the fact that my scholarship didn't cover everything. So, no – definitely not even close to virginal before Thawne. 

Harry was sure he heard right. "Repeat that?"

Barry did, very slowly. "When I was in college, I worked as a lap dancer, a stripper, and did outcall. Do you have a problem with that?" Barry bit his lip and looked at up at him from under his lashes.

He laughed. He had to. "Barry Allen, speedster and former rent boy. You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"

"Yeah, that's me – I'm just a gift that keeps on giving." Barry yawned and said, "I feel a little emotionally whipsawed tonight. Way too much sharing going on."

Harry was just as exhausted. He wrapped his arms around Barry again. "But do you feel better?"

"I do." Barry snuggled against him. "Harry?"

"Hmm, what?"

"You were careful when you talked to Joe, right?"

Harry remembered the bombshell Joe had dropped so many hours ago. Now was not the time to tell Barry that his foster father knew about them. The morning would be soon enough.

"Yes, I was careful. Now go to sleep." He kissed Barry's temple and sighed with pleasure as his lover relaxed against him.


	9. Chapter 9

They'd been together for nearly a year, but Barry couldn't remember waking up to sunlight and Harry in the same room before. It was a novel experience and one he wanted to savor.

He also wanted to savor the lightness in his soul. Apparently Oliver was right – talking to Harry helped. Really helped. He didn't doubt that he'd go through this again, but hopefully the next time, it wouldn't be so bad. 

The room had gotten warm during the night and they'd pushed the blanket to the floor and the sheet was tangled down at the foot of the bed. Harry had rolled onto his back and was snoring softly.

This was an opportunity not to be missed and Barry carefully eased Harry's shorts off. The morning light gilded his lover's body, highlighting details both familiar and newly discoverable. The scar from Patty's bullet had mostly faded, as had the swipe from Grood's claws, but Barry found other scars – a silvered line, like a knife wound, crossing Harry's firm belly just above his navel, a small pucker – another bullet wound – just below his ribcage. There was also patch of freckles just below his right hip, and most intriguingly, a small tattoo mostly buried at the top of his pubes. The ink was old and faded, but there was enough light in the room to see it. It wasn't a design, but a series of twelve numbers done without any art or care.

Barry didn't want to think about what those numbers meant or who put them there. Instead, he kissed the freckles, lapped at the sweat that had collected in Harry's belly button and following the sparse treasure trail to his pubes. He teased that interstitial point between smooth skin and musky curls with his tongue and was rewarded when Harry – and his cock – stirred to wakefulness. 

Harry threaded his hand through his hair and not so subtly tried to guide him to take his cock in his mouth. Barry resisted, enjoying this rare, languorous moment and kissed Harry's cock instead, using the tip of his tongue to trace over the veins. Harry groaned at the teasing, but let him play – his hands were still on his head, his nails lightly scratching at his scalp, but otherwise making no attempt to direct Barry in any way.

Barry rewarded his lover's patience and finally took his cock into his mouth. He vibrated his tongue very slightly, just enough to make Harry gasp with pleasure. Harry was a large man, but Barry was experienced and easily could have swallowed him whole. He didn't, preferring to play – to draw out the pleasure for both of them.

Harry started vocalizing, words of praise, obscenities, and finally desperate, needy begging. Barry licked a wide, wet strip up from Harry's balls to the tip of his cock before swallowing him, and this time, vibrated everything – tongue and throat and the fingers that teased his sac and perineum and the rim of his anus. 

It became a contest of endurance – Harry was trying to prolong the pleasure while he was doing his best to make the man lose control. Barry cheated, upping the vibrations and Harry came with a scream, pulling at Barry's hair, holding him against his cock as he came down his throat.

In truth, they both won.

A few panting minutes later, Harry muttered, "Allen, are you trying to kill me?"

Barry looked up the length of Harry's torso, grinned and asked innocently, "No, why? Is there a problem?"

"Come here." Harry reached for him and Barry just straddled his legs.

"I'm here. What do you want?"

"You." Harry wrapped a strong arm around him and brought him close for a kiss. Barry let him lick his own semen out of his mouth, from the corners of his lips, where it had dribbled down his chin. 

When Harry finished, Barry leaned over and whispered into his ear, "And I thought _I_ was a kinky bastard."

He felt Harry's chuckle down to his bones.

The room was warm and smelled of sex and something slightly funkier. "Shower?"

"God, yes. And it's your turn to be quiet."

Under an endless stream of hot water, Harry took him apart, bit by bit. Hands and mouth and teeth and cock, making him tremble from want and need and love. He did his best to keep quiet, because sound really did carry through the pipes and he didn't want his neighbors to hear him screaming.

But scream he did as Harry fucked him against the tile, taking shameless advantage of his speedster's metabolism, making him come over and over and over again, until he was fucked out and boneless. Until Harry turned off the water, and in a surprising feat of strength, carried him back to bed like wet and naked bride.

The smell of coffee and a toasting bagel brought Barry back to himself, and to his embarrassment, his stomach gave an audible rumble as he opened his eyes.

To find Harry sitting at his kitchen counter, wearing nothing more than a towel and a smile.

Barry smiled back, unbelievably happy. He bounded out of bed, wincing just a bit as his muscles protested.

"You all right?" Harry didn't seem overly concerned.

"It's funny – I can run a thousand miles a day, literally, and don't feel a thing. You fuck me against the shower wall and I feel like I just went ten rounds with King Shark. Why is that?"

Harry just kept on smiling.

Barry went to his dresser and fished around for a pair of clean shorts, saying, "You sure you don't have some meta powers? Or were secretly trained as a sex god, because you've got some serious mojo."

"It takes a very special kind of talent to fuck a speedster boneless, what can I say?"

Barry turned around, shorts still in hand. There was something in Harry's tone that set the hairs up on the back of his neck. Harry was still smiling, he body still relaxed, but Barry couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just touched a nerve. After the last few days and all of the emotional upheaval, he wasn't going to press the issue. Instead, he tossed the shorts on the bed and got himself a cup of coffee and the half of the bagel Harry left for him. It was a little amusing to see his lover's eyes dilate as he perched naked on the stool next to him, his junk out there and on display as he spread cream cheese.

"You're ready for another round, Allen?" Harry's voice was now pleasantly harsh.

"Always. I thought we'd already established that." Barry eyed the slight tenting under Harry's towel. "Are you?"

Harry glanced down. "The spirit and the flesh are willing, but …"

"But…"

Harry huffed out a sigh. "Put some clothes on. Please?"

Barry wasn't sure he liked where this was going. "In other words, 'we have to talk', right?"

"Yeah."

Barry retrieved the underwear he'd so recently abandoned and in concession to the early summer heat, he put a pair of wincingly bright Madras plaid shorts that Iris had given him. Harry followed suit, putting on his own clothes, too.

"Okay – so what's more important than sex?"

"I think that was the essay question for admission to All Souls at Oxford the year I went."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

"You're deflecting, Harry."

"I know."

"Come on – you're making me nervous. I thought we got through all our issues last night."

"This really isn't an issue. It's more … news."

"News?" Now Barry was utterly confused.

"Joe knows about us."

Barry sat there, blinking.

"He knows. Actually, he's known for a while."

"And he didn't shoot you."

"Nor did he punch me or otherwise threaten bodily harm. He was, in fact, rather frighteningly rational about it."

Barry nodded, "So much for secrets."

"It's been nearly a year. I'm surprised you lasted as long as you did. Your track record isn't the greatest."

Barry remembered Harry's admonition not to tell Iris and Joe about their Earth-2 counterparts – a promise he'd kept for about a week. "It is for what's important - like secret identities and secret lovers. Besides, emotionally constipated people like you shouldn't be giving out life advice."

"Very cute, Barry." But Harry was smiling.

"What now?"

"My daughter and I need to have a serious talk."

"Do you want me there?"

"No – I think this is something we need to settle between ourselves first. But maybe later – if we survive this – we can meet at Joe's and the two of you can hash things out."

"Or I can come over." The words left his mouth without thinking.

"Barry – "

"It's your place now, your home. Yours and Jesse's. Not his. And if this is going to be something more than sneaking around, I need to get over my issues." 

"You will, in your own time."

"Which needs to be sooner than later." This was something he could do, he needed to do.

Harry kissed him, first on the lips, then on the tip of his nose. "I need to get going. But we'll talk later?"

Barry didn't let Harry go so easily and deliberately mussed that ridiculous mop of hair. 

"Hey!"

"It's only going to get worse under the helmet."

Harry laughed, kissed him again and left. Barry went over to the window to watch him ride off. Today was going to be a very good day.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Caitlin dropped Jesse off about an hour after Harry got home. He invited her in, and in a move designed to shock, offered to make her breakfast.

"Oh, no – no. I really should get going, but thank you, Dr. Wells."

"Chambers, Snow. It's Chambers now. And I think you can call me Harry. Everyone else does."

"Harry – right."

"And it's not like you haven't called me that before, anyway. But you can leave off the 'Just a Dick' bit."

Caitlin bit her lip, torn between laughter and dismay.

"Dad…" Jesse stood there, arms across her chest, her smirk a welcome sight.

"What?"

"You _are_ being a dick."

"Snow – see what I've got to put up with?"

Caitlin shook her head, giving into the laughter. "I do have to get going – see you on Monday, unless something comes up."

Harry nodded. "Enjoy your weekend." 

Snow took off in her cute little car and Harry spared a moment's thought about how the young doctor was going to spend her weekend before turning back to his daughter. She was still standing there, still with her arms crossed, but the smirk was gone. So was the anger that had characterized their interactions for the past week or so.

But Harry knew better than to assume that Jesse was ready to forgive him. He also knew that he'd need to make the first move. "So, breakfast?"

"Looks like you already had breakfast – you've got cream cheese on your lips."

Harry wiped his mouth and licked the residue off his thumb.

"If that _was_ cream cheese."

He froze and counted backwards from a thousand by primes. He reached five hundred twenty three and got his temper under control. If Jesse wanted to be treated as an adult, he'd talk to her as an adult. "Yes, I spent the night with Barry. We split a bagel this morning. Now, do you want breakfast?"

She blinked, perhaps surprised at his baldly honest reply. "Um, sure."

"Pancakes?"

That got him a look of shocked delight. "Really?"

"The violins in Beethoven's Twelfth Symphony or the continuo in Bach's Seventh Brandenburg Concerto?"

"That's like asking me to pick between The Mona Lisa and a Raphael Madonna. Also, did you know that this world's Beethoven only wrote nine symphonies and Bach, only six Brandenburg concerti?"

"Yes, I did. And which do you want?"

"Which one's harder to do?"

"The violins in the Twelfth."

"Then that's the one I want. I'm going to get changed."

Harry smiled to himself as he pulled the ingredients for the pancakes out of the pantry. Maybe this wasn't going to be so difficult.

By the time Jesse came back to the kitchen, Harry had completed most of the violin section from the first movement, first drawing the music in batter on the griddle, letting it set, then filling it in. It was a trick that he'd picked up after Tessa died and he needed a way to distract Jesse – and himself – from their all-consuming grief. 

They ate in companionable silence, did the dishes in the same silence, and when Jesse sat back down, resting her chin on her hand, Harry knew it was time to talk.

"I wasn't keeping my relationship with Barry a secret because I was ashamed of it. Or because I didn't think you had the right to know."

"Then why?"

Harry sighed. "Because I didn't want you to think that you were not the most important person in my life. I didn't want me to think that my heart was divided, not when you were first rescued. After everything that Zoom did to you, I needed to do everything to make sure you were safe and happy and whole. That was my first priority. It was bad enough dragging you here, to a strange world, without any hope of going home."

"I guess I can understand that. But it's been ten months, Dad. And I've been doing pretty well for a while. Don't you think you could have told me?"

"Yes, I could have. And I'm sorry I didn't. I'm sorry you had to find out under such circumstances."

"I'm still angry at you because of that."

"Are you pissed because I kept it a secret or because you embarrassed yourself?"

Jesse shrugged. "A little of both, maybe." She gave him a considering look. "Did we stay because of Barry?"

"No. We stayed because you're becoming a speedster and this is the best place for you to develop your powers. I probably could have replicated what Ramon and Snow – and Barry – have created here, but you need their guidance. That can't be duplicated."

"And then there's the whole legal mess you left behind. Something about prosecution for mass endangerment? Making you accountable for the damage caused by all the metas ruining our Central City? Fraud? I'm thinking you really didn't feel like spending the rest of your life in jail."

"That, too." Trust his Jesse Quick to not pull any punches.

"But if I'd insisted, if I was miserable and demanded that we go back, would you have left Barry behind?"

"Yes." He was a little sick at the thought. "If I had to, I would have."

Jesse punched him. "Well, you shouldn't! How could you? There was real anger in her voice. "You'd just walk away from someone you care about because I'm being a selfish brat? Isn't he important, too?"

"He is – very – but he knows my priorities. And I trust that if you needed to go back to Earth-1, you'd have good reasons."

"I don't think I like your priorities."

"Jesse?"

"I mean – why shouldn't you be happy? Why do I have to carry that burden?"

"You're my child. Your happiness is more important than mine."

"It shouldn't have to be an either-or proposition." Jesse started to pace, leaving little trails of silver lightning behind.

Harry had to grin. "Sweetheart, why are you getting so worked up? Do you want to go back? Do you want me to leave Barry here?"

"No, of course not! But – "

"But nothing. Sit down and stop making me dizzy." Jesse sat down, opened her mouth, but he took her hands before she could say anything. "Let me speak, okay?"

She nodded.

"The only way I'll stop seeing Barry is if we have to go back. Otherwise, you're going to have to accept this relationship. Does that satisfy your need for romantic justice?"

"I am being silly, aren't I?"

"Yes."

"It really was kind of embarrassing to throw myself at my dad's boyfriend. Something I might not have done when if you just happened to mention that you were dating him when I said I thought he was kind of hot."

"You're right, I should have told you then. And you didn't say that Barry was hot. You said cute. I very specifically remember you saying cute."

"Well, he is cute. And hot, isn't he?"

Harry could tell that she was daring him to deny that, if just on principle. "Yes, sweetheart. He is. Very. Hot." Oh, it was so worth seeing his daughter's jaw drop. "And this is the last time I'm having any discussion of this sort."

"About your boyfriend's hotness?"

He glared at her, but it didn't work. She wasn't the least bit cowed.

"One more question, Dad."

He wasn't sure he wanted to answer, but nodded for her to go ahead and ask her question.

"Do you love him?"

Harry smiled. "Very much."

Jesse hugged him. "Good, you both deserve that."


	10. Chapter 10

Just because it was Saturday didn't guarantee that he had the weekend off. He usually spent a few hours patrolling – there was always someone to save, some crime to stop. There were also plenty of Saturdays when he got called to a crime scene, not because he was the only CSI on the CCPD, but because he seemed to have become everyone's favorite CSI.

Captain Singh had put a stop to most of those call-outs, but if Joe got tapped for a case, then it was likely that he'd get called in too. Normally, he didn't mind, but today – after the bombshell Harry dropped – he wasn't all that sure he wanted to catch a case with his foster father.

Not that Joe would be anything less than professional on the scene, and considering that he'd known about him and Harry for months and not said anything, there was no reason for reluctance. But now that the cat was out of the proverbial bag, he wasn't looking forward to being on the job with him. So he hoped that this would be a quiet Saturday and he wouldn't get called out.

And of course he got called to a crime scene, and of course Joe was there.

Barry picked through the scene, collected evidence, offered his opinion – certainly not meta, just some crazy-ass fuckwit who got a little too deep into edge play and strangled himself. His boyfriend came home and found the body.

The forensic analysis could wait for Monday.

The morgue came and collected the corpse and the other officers returned to the station. Joe stayed as Barry packed up his kit. Of course, Joe didn't quite hover, but didn't quite leave him alone. "Hot out, today."

Barry wiped the sweat from the back of his neck and agreed, hoping that this conversation was going to be limited to the weather. Or maybe weather and sports. Or even weather, sports and the Flash. Or Wally. Or Iris. Anything but…

"Talked to Harry last night."

Barry just nodded.

"He tell you?"

"Yeah."

"He also tell you I didn't threaten to punch or shoot or arrest him." Joe sounded very proud of his restraint.

"Yeah."

"Is that all you're going to say? Yeah?"

"Yeah." Barry sighed. "Look – it's just a little strange, okay? You're not his biggest fan and well, you're kind of overprotective and …"

"I'm your dad and he's twice your age and you are freaking out."

He was. 

"I won't say that I'm not concerned – and it's not the age thing, or that he's a guy thing, or the fact that he once tried to steal your speed. The first two things don't matter."

That surprised Barry.

Joe explained. "I just can't forget what Thawne said – it kind of haunts me."

Barry could well understand how Eobard Thawne could haunt someone. 

"About you still being the Flash in a hundred years, when he's alive."

"Three hundred, actually."

Joe whistled. "That's even rougher."

"I know."

"So I figure, you're going to be both a lot older than the people you love and you're going to lose them to time all the time. So, why get my shorts in a knot now? Does that make any sense?"

"Actually, it makes perfect sense."

"Good. And the guy thing? Who am I to judge or care. Love is love."

"That it is."

"So, we're left with the whole stealing your speed thing. And since you don't seem to have a problem with that – "

"He was trying to save his daughter's life."

Joe continued as if Barry hadn't said anything. "Then I don't either."

"Thanks, Joe."

"But if he breaks your heart, I'll string him up by his balls and make him bleed."

"Joe – "

"Just kidding. You're an adult, you need me – I'm here for you. But I know you can handle yourself and whatever problems you two might have."

Barry let out the breath he was still holding. "Thank you."

"Can I give you one bit of advice?"

"Sure – I was kind of waiting for that."

"Tell Henry – and sooner than later. He won't have a problem, but he shouldn't find out by accident, either."

Barry agreed. "I'll try to see him this week." His father had gotten his medical license back and was traveling around, providing basic healthcare to several Native American communities in the Pacific Northwest. 

"Smart." Joe clapped him on the shoulder. "I take it Iris knows."

"Of course she has, since the beginning."

Joe shook his head. "I guess you needed someone to blow off steam with."

Barry just smiled. "Some things will never change."

"Right. Well, I'm off to enjoy the rest of my weekend. You should, too."

"I will." Barry's phone buzzed with an incoming text as he waved Joe off. The message was from Harry and it was short and to the point. _Jesse's good._

Buried in those two words was an epic of subtext. He could ignore it. He could wait for Monday evening and talk to Jesse at S.T.A.R. Labs. He could enlist Joe – who would be willing to provide neutral ground – and get together tonight or tomorrow. Or he could man up and face whatever memories that house in the woods still held for him.

He dropped his gear back at the CCPD lab, logged in the evidence, and decided that it was time to stop letting the man who once called himself Harrison Wells rule his life. 

Three minutes later, Barry found himself in the woody exurbs north of the city, standing in front of house that had featured in too many of his nightmares. But it was almost unrecognizable with planters of colorful flowers cluttering up the formerly pristine front entrance. There was even a pair of bright nylon flags flanking the door – one with his Flash lightning bolt insignia, the other had a rendition of the planet, with the words "Embassy of Earth Prime" hand-lettered beneath.

Clearly Jesse's doing. 

It felt strange to actually ring the doorbell. Thawne had always known when he was coming and greeted him at the door. As the thought occurred, Barry did his best to banish it. That was the past. The girl and the man who lived here now were his future.

Jesse opened the door, and to his relief, she was smiling.

"Barry!" She pulled him in. "You're here!"

"Was I expected?"

"No – just surprised to see you. You've never visited before."

"Yeah, well…" He resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck.

"Was it because you and Dad and your Great Big Secret?" Jesse made air-quotes around the last three words.

"No, not really." 

"Oh?" 

Barry tried to explain without giving too much detail. "I have some … uncomfortable … memories of this place."

And of course, Jesse wouldn't let it go. "Why?"

"It was Eobard Thawne's. I guess your dad didn't tell you."

Jesse made a face. "No, but why would he? On the scale of things that matter, it's pretty low on the list. But I have to say, the guy might have been a psychopath but he had good taste."

"True." Barry looked around, noting the subtle and not so subtle changes – the vast central room seemed warmer, more welcoming. Harry's boots and a pair bright blue running shoes were visible under the bench on the far wall. A leather jacket – also Harry's, had been careless tossed on top of it. There were tiny pockets of clutter everywhere, something that would probably have sent Thawne climbing the walls.

"You here to see Dad?"

"No – to see you, actually."

"Ahh – I guess that Dad told you that we're talking again, so you and I need to clear the air, too."

"Pretty much."

"Well, I'm sorry I embarrassed you and I'm sorry I was such a bitch to you since The Incident." That got another set of air quotes.

Barry held out his hand. "Apology accepted."

Jesse took it and pulled him into the kitchen. "So, you and Dad, eh?"

"Yes, me and Harry."

"Did you know that he once fired his lead engineer for calling him Harry?"

"No, I didn't. And he doesn't have anyone to fire here."

"That's right, he actually works for you. So doesn't that make your whole relationship thing a conflict of interest? Or a sexual harassment claim in the making? Do the lawyers love that stuff here, too? Because I'm thinking someone needs to look out for my dad's interests and you're not in a position to do so, considering your romantic entanglement. I can't have you taking advantage of his sweet and generous nature."

Barry blinked. Jesse seemed so serious. "Umm…"

"Gotcha!" Jesse punched his shoulder. "You should have seen your face."

"You're evil, you know that?"

"Dad has mentioned it on occasion. You are so easy to torment." 

"Thanks, that's good to know. And 'sweet and generous nature'? Come on!"

Jesse laughed and punched his shoulder again, clearly the winner in this battle of wits. "Want to go for a run?"

Barry held out one foot. "Don't think my footwear will survive a good long run. It was too hot to wear the Cisco'd ones."

"Okay." Jesse pulled a couple of bottles of water out of the fridge and handed him one. "Dad's in the garage, he's working on an engine." She made a face. "He's rediscovered his inner tinkerer since we moved here. Thinks he's Tony Stark or something."

"That's a cruel thing to say. Tony Stark's an ass."

"So's my dad."

"But he means well."

"So does Tony Stark."

Barry laughed and followed Jesse out to the garage. He didn't even pause at the sight of Thawne's modified Mercedes G-Wagon parked and gathering dust. Harry was sitting on a stool, and in concession to the heat, was stripped down to his customary black sleeveless undershirt. There was a streak of grease decorating his cheek, his hair plastered with sweat against his skull, and his glasses all but sliding off the tip of his nose. He was working on a partially deconstructed engine mounted on a stand and looked extremely frustrated. And extremely beautiful.

"We have a visitor, Dad." Jesse put the other bottle of water on a workbench.

Harry looked up and his glasses fell off, hitting the engine before dropping to the floor. The look of immediate annoyance melted quickly into a soft, pleased smile. "Hey."

"Hey." Barry stood there, feeling almost too happy.

Jesse chuckled, "Well, I'm just going to leave you two lovebirds to do the, well, lovebird thing and stare meaningfully into each other's eyes while you melt from the heat."

Harry snorted a laugh and shook his head. "See, Allen - I get no respect. Not even from my own daughter.

Jesse retorted, "Especially not from your daughter."

Barry didn't say anything. He just smiled and let the all impossibly happy feelings float like bubbles through his veins.

Jesse just shook her head, muttered something about sappy, lovesick fools, and left.

Barry went over to Harry, pulled up a second stool and sat down next to him. "What's the problem here?"

Harry gave him an arch look but answered anyway. "Trying to get more power out of this lump. The design seems faulty - the fuel burn should be better. You familiar with internal combustion engines?"

"Somewhat."

Harry nodded. "Somewhat, my ass."

Barry leaned over and leered at the ass in question. When Harry glared at him, he asked, "Have you scoped the head yet? These models have a history of faulty bores."

"Good to know." 

"Want some help?"

Harry handed him a wrench. "Get to work."


	11. Epilogue

It was movie night at Casa Chambers and Jesse had won the right to select the evening's entertainment. She'd beaten Cisco at rock-paper-scissors for the honor and Harry didn't have the heart to tell the man that his speedster daughter cheated. But at least Cisco actually approved of Jesse's choice.

So, they were watching some unbearably noisy animated movie about an evil genius, the three little girls who'd adopted him, and the gang of tubular yellow monsters that did his every bidding. It was mildly amusing but mostly annoying.

The second movie was just as annoying, and even noisier, and Harry wished he hadn't promised his daughter that he'd sit through all three of these things.

At least the popcorn was fresh and drenched in real butter and salt, which of course left greasy smears across his paperwork. He hated paperwork.

The second movie finished with a squirt of grape jelly and Cisco muttering something about weaponizing condiments. He wasn't looking forward to the third movie and was considering breaking his promise to Jesse when the doorbell rang.

"That must be Barry." Jesse bounded up and ran for the door.

He called after her, "Check security first!"

"Already did."

In the interim, Harry pulled out his phone. He'd set it on mute when the movies started, although given the noise level, it was an unnecessary courtesy. It also meant that he'd missed the text from Barry confirming he'd be over around ten-ish.

"Look who finally showed up!" Jesse had her arm linked into Barry's and from the expression on Barry's face, he looked like he was being dragging into the ninth circle of Hell.

Harry stared at him over the top of his glasses. _Behave_.

Barry gave him a tiny nod and said, "Hope I'm not too late."

Cisco, ever oblivious, offered, "Nope. We've just finished _Despicable Me_ One and Two. About to start _Minions_.

"Ah."

"You seem less than thrilled, amigo. You _don't_ like Minions?"

Barry shrugged. "Never got the point."

Cisco's jaw dropped. "How could you not like Minions? That's like not liking chocolate. I don't think we can be friends anymore. Even Harry likes Minions."

"Don't speak for me, Ramon. I'm here for the popcorn. Unless you want to be my minion."

Cisco gave him the stinkeye and Harry just glared back, thoroughly pleased with everything in his world. He scooted over, put the paperwork on the floor and made room for Barry on the couch. Jesse caught his eye and smirked, but Cisco and Caitlin seemed oblivious.

Harry took advantage of the brief delay to request more popcorn and ask Barry how his evening went.

"Told my dad – about us."

"And?"

"He's cool. Didn't even say anything about giving you the shovel talk."

"Shovel talk?" Harry hadn't heard that term before.

"The 'you hurt my son, I'll kill you and bury the body in the woods where they'll never find you' kind of thing. What you'll probably be doing when Jesse starts dating again."

"Right. I've done that."

"Told Jesse's boyfriends that you'll murder them?"

"No, buried bodies in the woods."

Barry stared at him, not sure whether to believe him or not.

Harry just smiled and raised an eyebrow.

And Barry, getting the joke, grinned back. "A gerbil?"

He nodded, "And a hamster or two. And it wasn't in the woods, technically. Just the planter on the deck outside our apartment."

Barry laughed and shook his head. Harry just smiled.

The scent of freshly made popcorn wafted through the room and Harry took the bowl from his daughter. "I'm not sharing."

She smirked, "Not even with Barry?"

"Well, if I have to." He grudgingly offered the bowl to Barry, who took a too-healthy handful.

The lights dimmed and the movie began. This one seemed a little less frenetic that the previous two – maybe because of the soothing tones of some British actor's narration.

_Minions._   
_Minions have been on this_   
_planet far longer than we have._   
_They go by many names._   
_Dave, Carl, Paul, Mike._   
_Oh, that one is Norbert._   
_He's an idiot._   
_They're all different,_   
_but they all share the same goal._   
_To serve the most despicable_   
_master they could find._

The history of the Minions played out, boss after boss meeting their fatal ends at the hands of their adoring servants.

Cisco commented, completely straight-faced, "Pity we didn't have these guys around when we were fighting Zoom. One little push into a vat of liquid nitrogen and bam! No more bad guy."

Caitlin – who Harry thought would be the first to punch Ramon for his utter lack of sensitivity – given everything she'd lost – actually chuckled.

Barry, however, didn't seem amused. He was stone-faced, fist against his mouth, looking like he was about to cry.

Concerned, Harry grabbed the remote out of Cisco's hands and stopped the movie, then found the remote for the lights. He ignored the protests from his daughter and his guests and turned to Barry, who seemed to be having a meltdown of sorts. He was sitting there, rocking back and forth, biting on his hand. Everyone suddenly seemed to realize that their friend was in the midst of an emotional crisis, alternatively crowding him and giving him space.

Harry, not quite accustomed to the role of soother for anyone other than his daughter, dropped an arm over Barry's shoulders and rubbed his back; all too aware that Ramon and Snow still had no clue about their relationship. But he didn't care – Barry needed him.

"It's okay, it's okay. Just breathe, Barry, breathe."

Barry looked at him, tears filling those beautiful eyes. He was biting his fist so hard, Harry was afraid he would draw blood. He tried to pull it away and to his surprise, Barry let him.

"Are you okay?"

Barry shook his head, his lip caught in his teeth as tears started streaming down his face. Harry had no clue what had set this off and felt utterly helpless. He'd seen Barry face down monsters, deal with shattering loss, confront devastating memories, but he'd never seen him break down like this.

"Can you tell me what's the matter?"

To his relief, Barry nodded. He took a deep breath, wiped the tears from his face and said, "The minions – they are all tiny incompetent Reverse-Flashes." And then Barry started howling with laughter. Uncontrollable, joyous laughter.

Everyone turned to look at the screen and seemed to arrive at the identical conclusion – everyone but his daughter – and started laughing, too. Cisco, who'd once been killed by the evil speedster, was on the floor, flat on his back, howling. Caitlin was beating her fists against her chair, and like Barry, tears were streaming down her face.

Cisco recovered, looked at him and probably remembered the times that he'd put on the yellow suit, and started laughing again.

Harry glanced at the screen, fortuitously paused at a point when one of those creatures – a long, skinny one, with two eyes – was racing pantsless to some unknown destination. If the eyes behind the goggles were red, the poor little thing would certainly be a comical stand-in for their arch-nemesis.

He chuckled, caught Barry's eye, and that chuckle became a full-bodied laugh. He thought of Thawne, in the pipeline cell, smirking at him, but all he could see were hordes of little yellow monsters, racing about, trying to be oh-so-helpful and failing miserably, and he howled.

Harry buried his face against Barry's shoulder and the two of them shook with helpless mirth.

Eventually they all seemed to recover, enough for Cisco to wrestle the remote from him and restart the movie. Barry filched the popcorn bowl and settled it on his lap. Harry didn't mind and used it as an excuse to sit closer to him. He draped an arm around Barry's shoulder and leaned against him.

Caitlin turned around, looked at the two of them and elbowed Cisco. He turned around, took in their closeness and shook his head. Caitlin whispered something and held out her hand. Cisco pulled out his wallet, extracting what looked like a couple of twenties and gave them to Caitlin with fairly bad grace.

He noticed Harry's stare. "What?"

"What was the bet?"

Caitlin answered, just a little bit smug, "That you'd be the one to give the first PDA."

He felt Barry laugh.

"You think that's a PDA?" Harry pretended to be insulted. "This is a PDA." He turned to Barry, who was smiling softly, his eyes filled with approval. Harry kissed him, slowly, lingeringly, until they were both breathless. There was no need for secrets anymore.

At least this secret.

 

 

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading and sticking with this story, from beginning to end. Your kudos and your very precious comments are held close to my heart, and could not be a better welcome into this delightful fandom.
> 
> Feel free to follow me at my tumblr [Obscene Circus Ponies](http://elrhiarhodan.tumblr.com/), or on my old school (and much beloved) [LiveJournal](http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/) account.


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